


Embracing the Beast

by Deannie



Series: The Beast [1]
Category: The Real Ghostbusters
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-09-03
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 13:24:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1900512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter's having trouble sleeping, and the rest of the Team is having trouble with nightmares. Can The Ghostbusters come to grips with the connection between the two problems?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Damn!

The bunkroom is slowly coming into focus around me, but I swear, I have one more nightmare like that, and I'm swearing off sleep for good.

Not that I'm getting a whole lot of it, anyway.

The gorgeous brunette I dated my junior year at Columbia was studying sleep therapy at the time, and, being a pretty screwed up individual when it came to sleep patterns, I just had to give her a hand. Well, didn't I? I'm a pretty giving guy, when it comes right down to it.

It was just our luck that one of my famous bouts of sleeplessness came to the fore about three weeks into her study. She was fascinated. She'd pegged me for a borderline narcoleptic, with all the attendant REM disorders and heavy sleep requirements, when along came this week where I never slept more than an hour. Kind of like tonight. Stupid Beast.

That's the name she gave it for me: The Beast. Damn good name, I've always thought. Wish I could remember hers.

Anyway, here I am, still shaking from that freaking nightmare, staring at the clock which tells me, unhelpfully, that it's only 1:35. One whole hour of sleep, plagued by visions that wouldn't even make sense to Slimer, and I'm more exhausted than I was when I turned in. And this week, this just can't be happening.

We've been busy. Way _too_ busy. Like, Gozer busy. Egon said the meters aren't measuring anything unusual, that it's just a seasonal thing, but I can't help thinking something more is going on. Of course, that might just be the paranoia talking. It's a standard pattern in insomniacs. The longer an episode lasts, the more paranoid you get. Being paranoid to begin with isn't really helping matters with me.

That dream... I reach out to my bedside table, flicking on the light and looking around carefully to make sure the tiny bulb on my desk lamp isn't waking anybody up. My dream journal--another holdover from Melissa (Hey! That was her name!)--is looking a little battered. This is the fifth one in the ten years since we started the Ghostbusters, and that, more than anything, speaks to my screwed up mental state. This journal is what I use during these stupid Beast attacks to chart the progress of the disease. That's right, I'm a closet academic--so sue me!

Yesterday's entry makes about as much sense as the one I'm about to write down: "Different shades of green--spinning... lightning... sounds like flies buzzing around. Big flies. Tank-sized flies." Great, Venkman. Very poetic. Tonight's... "Again with the green... heat... buzzing... bright lights--more strobe lights than lightning."

So informative. Glad I keep this thing around. It's all they'll need to get me locked in a padded cell when the time comes.

Which may be soon if I keep waking up feeling like I lost my best friend... Which brings me to my nightly ritual. Egon is in the bed next to mine, snoring that bulldozer snore of his, flat on his back with his spine in perfect alignment. Unnatural, that's what Spengs is. Winston is snoring away, too, though his is a little less like a bulldozer and more like a chainsaw. He's curled up on himself, and the snores are broken by the occasional groan. Another night, another replay of twenty years ago. I swear, I'll never figure out how a guy who did two tours in Vietnam manages to be so normal and well-adjusted.

And speaking of the phenomenally well-adjusted, Ray is lying on his stomach, his Stay Puft marshmallow man at his side. His face is sort of turned toward my side of the room, and he looks a little troubled. Not enough to warrant waking him--though I'd really like the company--but enough that I bet he'll have a doozy of a nightmare to tell us all over the breakfast table. Maybe that's why Ray is so well-adjusted. Losing your parents at ten--watching them die when there was nothing you could do about it... It should have left him more baggage than just a timid nature and an ego the size of Slimer's brain. But every emotion is a sharing experience for our Ray. And maybe just the sharing makes it easier.

Not that I'm ever going to know from personal experience. At least not the experience of sharing these dreams. No, the Beast is my own personal demon, and hell if I'm going to subject the guys to its visions. Damn, I've got one hell of a headache. They seem to be worse this time around. Insomnia always brings the pain side out, but, looking over at Ray again, he seems to have a shimmer about him. That's bad, in medical terms. People shouldn't glow. When they glow, you take a whole lot of aspirin and find a dark place to hide until they don't glow anymore.

The rec room is dark, isn't it?

Well then... time to head for the aspirin.

**************

Gosh, I'm exhausted.

I know I slept all night--I even slept in a little late this morning--but I feel like I spent the whole night running up and down the stairs with a proton pack on my back!

Peter doesn't look any better than I feel. I head for the coffeemaker, watching him stretch stiffly as I do. Insomnia. Wow, I'm *so* glad I've never had it. I remember the bouts he had in college, and somehow, they seemed to get worse once we started the Ghostbusters. Of course, that might just be because of the stress of the job. Still, I wish he'd get some sleep.

We tried to get him to take sleeping pills--once. It was my junior year of college. Peter had just started his first PhD and Egon was finishing his, and Egon and I were really worried. Peter tried to hide it from us for a few days. I know he always hated to worry us about it back then. But it was kind of hard to explain why we went to bed with him watching the late night movie and woke up to see him watching the morning news. He's a twelve-hour-a-day sort of guy, and even a couple of days without that much sleep were pretty obvious.

So Egon suggested pills. Columbia Medical has this great sleep lab, and I know Peter spent some time there when he was dating Melissa, but he'd never let them set him up with a sleep regimen. It was almost like he _wanted_ to stay awake. We finally forced him into going after a week of sleepless nights, and he bitched and moaned the whole time. They sent him home with some kind of sleeping pill, and Egon nearly sat on him to make him take one.

Three-thirty that night, we both woke up to hear screams--honest to God screams--coming from Peter's room. He took forever to really wake up, and he was cursing a blue streak at Egon when he did. He never took another pill, and a couple of days later he just crashed. Egon and I got rear-ended pretty bad, and he came to the emergency room to pick us up. I thought _I_ was going to have to drive home, he looked so exhausted. Once we put Egon to bed with his concussion, Peter conked out on the sofa and slept for almost a day. I guess it was the stress of the near miss, because something like that seems to kick him out of it pretty easily.

But the nightmares he has? I used to think that insomnia meant not sleeping at all, but Peter taught me different. He sleeps a little bit--maybe an hour or so a night--but he has these horrible dreams that keep waking him up. The first time I saw one was when we'd been in the firehouse for a couple of months. Everybody else was sleeping, and I was reading a new journal I'd gotten in the mail that day. Peter just bolted upright and sat there, breathing so hard I thought he was having a heart attack. He calmed down after a couple of minutes, but it was like he couldn't bring himself to try to go back to sleep. That bout lasted nearly ten days, and he was a wreck by the time it was over.

He doesn't look like too much of a wreck today, though I can tell he didn't sleep any more than he usually does when he gets this way. A stray memory from my dreams last night comes back to me as I sit down with my coffee, and looking at him, I see a kind of overlay of his face covered in blood. It's creepy! It's not like I never have nightmares, but they don't usually scare me this much. This one...? It was like it was going to happen. Like I was dreaming the future.

Gosh, I really hope Egon's wrong when he says that we might all have higher psi ratings because we spend so much time around the ghosts. If that was supposed to be the future, I think I'd like to pass.

"Hey, Tex? You awake in there?"

Peter waves a hand in front of my face and the overlay goes away. He's tired, I'm tired... I look around at Egon and Winston as they trudge in together, fighting for the coffeemaker, and they look tired too. Maybe nobody slept well last night.

"I'm okay, Peter," I assure him with a smile. "Just didn't sleep well."

"I hear that."

Winston's voice is lower than usual, like he hasn't quite woken up yet. I look up at him to see shadows in his eyes, and I wonder if he dreamed about Vietnam again. Gosh, I can't even imagine how horrible that must have been for him...

"You'd think I'd've been too tired *not* to just crash last night, after the day we had, but I felt like I was tossing and turning all night."

Peter shrugs, but he's watching me. Why is he watching _me_? Did I talk in my sleep or something? His eyes narrow for a moment, but he turns to Winston. "You were all snoring away when I got up."

"Which was...?" Egon's eyes are still a little fuzzy with sleep, but he's keeping a close eye on Peter. He always does during these bouts, like he's waiting to catch him when he crashes.

Peter smiles wide, and I can see the twinkle in his eyes. "Just in time to catch the second half of a *Witchblade* marathon." He gives me a randy smile. "Yancy Butler in leather! What more could a man ask?"

"A full night's sleep, perhaps?" Egon's trying to hide a smile, but it almost never works with us. Sometimes I wonder why he even tries.

Later in this bout of insomnia, Peter's probably going to want to hit him for saying that, but right now, he's not sleep-deprived enough to care. "Sleep's overrated, Egon, didn't you know that?"

"Not for some of us, it isn't--and that usually includes you," Winston rises to fill his mug again, and curses when he gets to the counter. "How the hell did that happen?"

I look down into the empty mug in front of me then back at the empty pot in his hand, vaguely remembering draining my first cupful right in front of the coffee machine. I can't believe I did that--I'm usually only up for a single cup. "Sorry," I offer lamely. "Guess we all need a little wake up call."

Just like it was planned or scripted, the alarm goes off. I guess I slept later than I thought, because Janine is obviously already here. Peter groans as he stands up and heads for the stairs. "This is ridiculous, Spengs. That's the fifteenth call this week. We got another Gozer build-up coming?"

Wow! That'd be great, if I wasn't so tired! But Egon just shakes his head, heading upstairs to change out of his robe and nightshirt. I'm kind of surprised he isn't already dressed like the rest of us, but maybe he had a bad night, too. "No, Peter," he replies confidently. "Not Gozer. Just springtime in New York."

Peter snorts in irritation, turning back to Winston and me as the three of us make our way downstairs.

"Anyone for April in Paris?"

*********

Damn. Of all the duplexes in all the suburbs in all of Long Island, that ghost had to walk into ours.

Okay, not ours, but the house we were supposed to clean out. Still, it's a pretty crappy coincidence.

When Janine gave us the work order, I figured we were looking at a simple dispersion. A young couple had just bought this duplex, and they'd been haunted by a ghost wandering the halls, moaning for Susan and Katie. Sounded like a simple guilt manifestation. Something had happened to Sue and Katie, and the ghost figured it was all his fault. Hell, we'd get paid full-price, and we wouldn't even have to fire a shot.

Nothing's ever easy, is it? Why is that, anyway?

Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael left us the keys, signing the agreement before I let them out the door. They were a nice couple, and the duplex was pretty; clean and full of Bombay Company furniture. It looked like a place we didn't want to damage too much, and I hoped I was right about the ghost. Damage clause or not, I do so hate to break up fine furniture.

Ray and the guys finally seemed to be waking up, and I was actually feeling okay myself, despite two sleepless nights. Maybe I'm getting used to this no sleeping thing. Now there's a scary thought.

The ghost, however, wasn't scary at all. He was kind of pathetic. About half an hour after we got there, he started moaning, wandering down the hall toward us. Your typical class four free-floater, dressed in some of the more ridiculous clothes from the sixties. God, I hope _I_ never dressed that bad. What would it do to my image?

"Susan... Susan... Katie?" The ghost sobbed, and I actually felt sorry for him. "Oh, Katie..."

I stepped forward gently. "Who's Katie? Your daughter?" Score one for Venkman. The ghost's eyes came up to meet mine, and I kind of shivered at the pain there.

"My Katie... I lost her... All my fault..."

I stood silent, feeling the guys hanging back behind me. This was a call for Dr. Venkman, not the Ghostbusters. I tried to keep my voice low and comforting. "What happened? Can you tell me?"

The ghost drifted farther away, and I resisted the urge to step forward. "Please? We only want to help."

"You can't help me... No one can help me... I've lost them... Susan... and Katie... It's all my fault."

"I can try," I offered, raising a hand in entreaty. If he took off now, we'd have to sit around on this lovely furniture and wait for him to come back. "Please... Tell us what happened."

"The road... so dark... I couldn't see it... Couldn't see it, and now it's too late..."

Car accident. Damnit. I glanced back at Ray, and could see by his pale features that he had caught the significance of the ghost's problem. I hate it when that happens. Simple dispersion, my ass.

"What was in the road?" Ray asked quietly. His voice was gentle, but I could see his hands shaking as he stepped forward to stand next to me. "What didn't you see?"

The ghost covered its face and sobbed. "I didn't see it! It was raining, and the roads were wet... I killed them! Susan... Katie... It's all my fault!"

"No it wasn't," I assured him hastily, my sympathy split between the ghost and Ray. "It wasn't your fault. You couldn't have seen it. Not through all the rain."

"But I should have--"

Ray stepped forward, going so far as to actually touch the cold apparition. I could see the ectoplasm soaking into Ray's sleeve as he hardened his voice, and I shivered for him. "There was nothing you could do," he vowed. He was almost angry, and I remembered the discussions we used to have in college, once I found out what had happened to his parents. He talked a lot about the psychologist he'd been sent to, and all the things the guy said that Ray never could believe. "The rain made it too hard. It wasn't your fault." My heart lurched as Ray's tone turned tearful. " _Please_... It wasn't your fault. You should be with them, not here." He smiled painfully, and I think my heart actually stopped. "I'm sure Katie misses you."

"My Katie..." The ghost pulled its hands away, and looked into Ray's eyes with a new hope burgeoning. "I can't find her... I want to see my Katie again."

"Then believe me when I tell you it wasn't your fault," Ray pleaded. "Katie knows that. And Susan, too." His eyes traced the floorboards through the ghost's unreal form. "Don't make them wait any longer to tell you that."

"But the raccoon--"

"No. It... just happened. An accident." I reached out a careful hand, placing it on Ray's shoulder. He'd heard that before, too. "Don't let Katie miss you anymore."

The ghost grabbed both of Ray's arms, and the kid didn't even flinch as his eyes rose to meet the ectoplasmic tears. "She's waiting for me?"

Ray nodded, his voice a bare whisper. "Just let go... Be with them."

And, easy as that, the ghost smiled his astonished thanks, and disappeared.

And Ray very nearly collapsed in a heap. Egon came forward to help me guide him over to the couch, and we just sat there for a minute, with Winston on the table in front of us, gripping Ray's knee for comfort.

 

I steal a glance at Ray now, as Winston pulls Ecto into the garage. He's still a little white in the face, and way too quiet.

"You okay, Tex?" I ask quietly. "Wanna talk?"

"I'm okay, Peter." I'm not sure I believe him, but he's smiling timidly. "It just..."

"Hit home?" Winston turns around from the driver's seat with a comforting smile of his own. "I know, homeboy. But you got us, remember?"

When Ray's smile widens, I know he's going to be okay. It's not like this is the first time something's reminded him of this--hell, I bet every time he drives he thinks about it, at least a little--but he'll be okay. Winston's right: He's got us.

"I know, Winston." He shares the grin with me then looks past me to Egon in the front seat. "Thanks guys. It helps knowing you're always around when I need you."

"Always, Ray."

Egon's steadfast comment warms me a little, too, and I sense Ray shaking off his funk. He'll be okay. How could he not, with friends like Winston and Egon to stand by him? I know they make my life bearable when it shouldn't be. And so does Ray, whose smile is getting brighter by the second. I feel a hugfest brewing.

"Hey! Hello?! You guys gonna sit in the car all day? You got ghosts to bust!"

Janine's irritating Brooklyn accent breaks through the moment, and I groan, making Ray chuckle. "The queen awaits," I mutter meanly, shooting a look at Egon. It's not that I don't like Janine--not at all. It's just that... she _bugs me_! Probably the same way I bug her.

"Then we mustn't keep her waiting," Egon replies evenly, exiting the vehicle.

"I hate it when he does that."

"Doesn't rise to the bait, you mean?" Winston asks me with a smile. "Man, you been hounding him for years about her. Just give it a rest."

"I will," I promise. "Soon as she throws the bouquet."

********

Peter is watching Slimer far too closely, but I am content to let him do so for the duration of the movie--or at least as long as the popcorn lasts. While I seriously doubt the ghost will divebomb a bowl situated firmly in Peter's lap, he has done so before, much to everyone's dismay--especially Peter's.

I wonder if Slimer actually understands us. Perhaps it is the fact that Ray has pulled this particular movie out tonight, and I have little love for George Lucas's trilogy, or perhaps it is simply the fact that I am so fatigued, but I find my thoughts wandering as I watch Slimer try, unsuccessfully, to purloin some popcorn.

I believe the small class five we have adopted as our own does have some child-like intelligence. Certainly he's shown himself to be a loyal, if slightly troublesome, ally in past campaigns, but I wonder if he truly understands what we say when we rebuke him. I don't believe it's a question of intelligence so much as a question of moral or earthly understanding. Perhaps Slimer's frame of reference is simply different than our own.

"You go near that refrigerator, Spud, and the next trap has your name on it."

I look up suddenly to see Slimer, frozen in his floating procession toward the kitchen by Peter's empty threat. Perhaps he does understand us at that.

"Aw, Peeeter! No fun."

He floats in a pitiful circle once, before something in the hall seems to peak his interest and he zips out of the room and down the stairs. At least we might get through one bowl of popcorn without the liberal addition of ectoplasm.

Though I doubt any of the rest of us are likely to get much of our own shares with the bowl so firmly held by the resident junk food addict.

"Hey, Egon!"

I can feel the approving smiles of Ray and Winston as I procure the bowl, fighting off Peter's half-hearted assault. This movie was a good idea after all. I look around at them all, and sigh tiredly. It has been a very long week. We have busted no fewer than three ghosts a day--often as many as six--and the constant barrage has been wearing on us all.

I assume that the stressful schedule has only contributed to the nightmares I have been experiencing, and can only hold myself lucky that nightmares have been the greatest of our problems. Frequency is not always matched by danger, and the ghosts we've pursued have all been simple catches--excepting the unfortunate dispersion this morning that still has shadows lurking in Ray's eyes.

Still, he is smiling happily at the movie he and Peter have clearly memorized, and the two of them are trading lines back and forth with glee. I measure my oldest friend carefully, seeing the glint of humor that overlays the exhaustion in his eyes. I cannot help but worry at the timing of this latest Beast attack. If he should allow this bout to get out of hand, it could be difficult for us all to work in a situation already made trying by the sheer number of ghosts that seem to appear during each spring.

I know that Winston is keeping a close eye out for Peter as well, but he seems to be having his own problems, though he would never talk about them to the rest of us. Winston is, by nature, a protector, and he has taken that role upon himself with the rest of us. As a result, I often wonder whether he feels isolated by us. He rarely discusses his own problems, but is always ready with compassion and comfort should we need him.

It appears I shall have to tame my own demons quickly, as Peter and Winston both will require careful attention. Raymond's problem is easier--Raymond's problems are always easier. Quick to emotional upset, and just as quick to calm, Ray needs very little from his friends, a direct inverse of the strength and comfort he is willing to give.

I settle back, feeling exhaustion overtake me, and realize fleetingly just how lucky I am to have these three men around me. At least I know that, whatever demons we might face, we will face them together.

**********

Winston!!! Egon! What the hell--

I'm in the rec room. I'm in the rec room and Egon is snoring on the couch next to me, and Winston and Ray are conked out on the other one and I'm fine.... They're fine....

Damnit.

I try to latch on to the Beast's latest offering, but I can't figure out the images. All I know is that I'm kind of surprised to find the guys alive around me. That is a major freak, let me tell you. The Star Wars tape is out, automatically rewound, and a rerun of The Honeymooners is playing. Ed Norton is strutting around talking about his string of "poloponies," and I'm awake. Again. The clock confirms my major accomplishment. Two whole hours of sleep tonight. Gotta be a record against the Beast.

Course, it didn't come without a price. As my gaze shifts from Norton to Egon, that sparkling attack begins in the back of my eyes, and I squint painfully against the dim lamp on the table beside him. Shit. Now I have to worry about a bleeding ulcer too. Too much aspirin is just plain bad for a body.

"Hey, Egon?" I push his shoulder slightly, noting the lines of exhaustion on his lean face. I should let them all sleep--it was obvious this morning that they were tired--but I don't think they'll thank me for the neck spasms they'll have all day tomorrow from sleeping on the couch.

"Egon, wake up!"

He jerks painfully, his glasses sliding right off his nose as he shakes awake. If I didn't know better, I'd say he's been having a nightmare. Hell, I don't know better, and it must have been a doozy from the way he's peering at me, an edge of panic in his eyes. I kindly choose not to notice, and hand him his glasses. I've known the guy for twenty years. He'll tell me if he wants me to know.

"Peter? What's going on?" Egon Spengler, brain extraordinaire, half asleep. It's almost cute. And it's just about the _only_ time I ever see a trace of real confusion on his face.

"You slept through the last few minutes of the finest movie ever made."

"I thought we were watching Star Wars."

I catch the twinkle in his eyes and pretend outrage. "Egon, you blasphemer!" Okay, maybe I'm not all pretending. "George Lucas is a god! A genius! He's--"

"A hell of a lot quieter than you."

Winston's grumble has me turning, and I notice my headache is easing up a little bit, though Ray still looks a little fuzzy as he sleeps on. Him, we might let get that crick in his neck. And they say _I'm_ hard to wake up!

"Would you rather sleep here, or walk in the morning?" I ask reasonably. From the stiffness of his movements, I can see he's got my point. He leans over toward Ray, shaking him carefully. Like Egon, Ray comes awake with a start, his face brightening strangely as he catches sight of Egon.

Another nightmare? I thought I had the corner on that market?

"The movie over?" Ray asks sleepily, rubbing at his eyes like a four-year-old.

"You slept!" I stand, stretching painfully, though at least my eyes aren't screaming at me anymore. "The greatest movie ever made, and you slept through it?!"

"Cut the crap, Pete," Winston offers good-naturedly. "You were snoring away before I was."

"Was not," I disagree, heading for the stairs with the rest of them in my wake.

"Were too," he grumbles back, already half-asleep again.

"Was not."

"Were too."

"Was not."

"Were--"

"Gentlemen."

Egon's one word is enough to shut us up, and we exchange a smile as we hit the landing on the third floor. I head for my bed while the others get ready to sleep, and pull out my journal. "Green... flies and yelling... Something about Egon and Winston and blood." And blood. I shiver at the sensation that woke me--the feeling that I had seen Egon down, blood covering his chest.

"You're about ready for another journal."

The rumbling bass makes an interesting mark on my notebook as I jerk my pen in surprise. I close it swiftly and look up at him, sitting calmly on his bed. He's the fastest changer I've ever seen. Already dressed in that ridiculous nightshirt of his, he's sliding under the sheets as he looks at me, those damn myopic blues of his spearing me from behind his glasses like a butterfly in a case.

"Peter..."

Oh, I see. We're going to have "the talk." See, every couple of years, Egon feels the need to remind me--I'm the actual psychologist here, remember--that there are any number of valid options for people with "my condition."

"Which one do you want to talk about this time, Spengs," I wonder aloud. "Sleep therapy? Biofeedback? Maybe the drugs--but we tried those once, didn't we?"

He's glaring at me now, but I don't know why he thinks this time is going to be any different. I've tried everything else, and I won't take the pills again. I just plain, flat-out, will not take them. The last time, fifteen years ago, it was like they trapped me inside with the Beast, and I couldn't get away from it. I can still remember the dream--Egon with his head split open, blood dripping from one ear as he bled to death. And the drugs wouldn't let me get away.

I don't think I've ever been so angry with him. Surely he doesn't think he can talk me into it again, does he?

Apparently not. He just sighs and pushes his glasses back up, looking at me like he's failed me or something. I don't know why he still thinks he can fix me. I've been broken for a whole lot longer than I've been his friend, and some parts of a person's psyche you just can't fix.

"Peter, do at least try to sleep." It's the best he can do right now, and I figure I'll give him the credit of trying.

"I'll be joining you in Dreamland anytime, Egon." I slide down under my blanket and watch the others get into bed before reaching over to turn out the light. "Save me a seat, okay?"

I listen to him snort and hear the clatter of his glasses hitting the bedside table. Slowly, they all drift back to sleep, and I'm left alone to ponder things. Things like, why were Egon and Ray both having nightmares tonight? And what were they dreaming? And how long have they been sleeping badly? Has the Beast got me so turned around that I can't even notice when my friends are having problems?

I sit up, unwilling to let insomnia have that much credit, and watch them all sleep. Winston is curled up again, but he's relaxed, his snoring bouncing off the walls in counterpoint to everyone else's. Ray is on his back, making his heavy breathing a snore in itself. Funny, I always thought he'd be a bigger snorer than Egon--I mean, look at the two of them and do the math, huh? But he just breathes like he's running a marathon. Go figure.

Egon isn't snoring at all, and that's pretty strange in and of itself. I don't think he's ever not snored--unless he's really badly injured. But he's fine now, right? Regardless of the unexplainable anguish that is bubbling away in my stomach, Egon's just fine. Fine enough to give me the talk. Fine enough--

I'm staring at Egon when it happens. A light brighter than God that hurts like Hell spears through my head, leaving me blind and nearly deaf. I gasp in surprise, but I can already feel myself losing consciousness. Whatever this is, I don't think it's the Beast. It's never done this before. Never attacked me so directly.

As I start to fade entirely, sounds come filtering back to me, and I swear I hear a chuckle as I fall.

And it sounds enough like me to terrify me.

********

Images of Sparky, his guts all but hanging out, chase me back to wakefulness, and I sit up quick, wrapping arms around the knees that jerk up meet my chin. Shit! That's the worst one in years!

Sparky was... Hell, Sparky was a little too much like a certain over-eager engineer for my comfort right now. I look over at Ray's bed, and see him sleeping away, the marshmallow man tucked under his arm. Just the normalcy of the image, outlined in silver moonlight, is enough to calm me down some. Egon's snore is rumbling along, but it's rough, as if he's having his own nightmare. And Pete...

Pete's out cold. Thank God. I figured he'd never get some sleep, but here it is, four o'clock in the morning, and he's under deep. He's flung out on his back, like he got blown over by a wind, and he's...

Not snoring.

Pete, asleep, not snoring, is a major problem.

My legs aren't as steady as I'd like them to be, but I make it to his bed and just look at him for a minute. He's breathing all right, but he's like a rag doll. I've seen him crash from insomnia before, and it was never like this. Shaking him doesn't get me any response, and I go for his pulse point out of instinct.

Just the touch of my fingers at his throat shocks him awake, and he's looking up at me in panic.

"Hey, Pete. It's okay," I soothe, gripping his shoulder lightly. Somehow, that bothers him, and he jerks away, curling up against the headboard. "Pete?"

He's silent for a minute, his eyes everywhere at once. Then, just as suddenly as he woke up, he's sighing, relaxing his muscles, looking at me in confusion and scaring me half to death. Finally, just when I'm about to think seriously about waking the others, his eyes sharpen their focus.

"Hey, Zed... What's up?"

Damn, he sounds shakier than I feel. "Had to check you were still breathing, man," I offer quietly, mindful of the others snoring away. "You had me scared for a second there."

He nods, though I'm pretty sure he didn't even process what I just said. "I heard..." He trails off in confusion. "I think I must have fallen asleep."

"Something you don't know much about lately," I pipe in with a smile. "Must've thrown you for a loop."

"Yeah." That isn't a 'yeah, I guess it must have,' that's a 'yeah, I still don't know if I'm out of the nightmare yet.'

I reach out to his shoulder again, and this time he doesn't jerk away. "How bout we hit the tube, my man." I grin, hoping he'll figure out he's okay and snap out of this. "Maybe that Witchblade babe is back on."

The smile he gives me is nothing like his normal one, but it's a start. "Yancey Butler in leather..."

"Yeah," I agree. Don't know who the hell this Butler babe is, but Pete's got pretty good taste in women. I'm willing to trust him this time.

Just like I do every time.

**********

It's five o'clock, and Winston has finally dropped back to sleep, snoring away on the couch while I sit here in my chair, watching him. And I'm left alone again with thoughts I really don't want to contemplate. That was seriously freaky. I can just barely remember something about a bright light, but the next thing I knew, Winston was attacking me. Okay, not really--he was just shaking me awake--but my mind translated it as an attack, and I knew I had to get away from him or he was going to kill me.

Even after he got me fully awake and down here, even after we talked about the nightmare that woke him up to find me tossed like a sack of potatoes on my bed, even after we lapsed into a companionable silence and watched a rerun of I Dream of Jeannie, I could still feel the violent grip of his hands on my shoulders.

Shaken is not the word to describe me right now.

At least I know I wasn't sleeping. I know that. Sleep is this place where dreams come out of the woodwork, where your subconscious takes over and makes you face the things you just can't in the daylight. This was... This was a big gaping nothing that I got thrown into. A dark place with no thought, no light, no nothing... Shit.

I run a hand through my hair and consider my options. One, it was some freak blackout caused by the insomnia. Forget the fact that I've never passed out before--at least not from sleeplessness. Forget the fact that my insomnia has, for nearly forty years, manifested as too much dreaming instead of none at all. Forget the fact that I still feel like someone *else* pushed me to it...

Two, it could be something medical. I don't know--late onset seizure disorder, atypical migraine, hell, it could even be a tumor for all I know...

Moving quickly away from two and on to three... It could be a ghost. Or a demon. Or something we haven't even figured out yet. I'm leaning heavily toward haven't figured out yet, because Egon's handy dandy ghost alarm should have let us know loud and clear if anything was here that shouldn't be. Slimer's the only ghost immune to that thing.

And where the hell is the spud today anyway? After his failed popcorn snatch last night, he just sort of disappeared. Not that I'm crying over it, mind you... Just curious. If he were here, maybe he could tell us if there's a ghost around that we have to watch out for. If nothing else, he makes a good alarm.

Okay... so we're leaning toward three. I stand up and head for the lab. Just have to get a meter and--

Shit! I'm slammed back into the chair again by a surge of pain in my head so intense, I figure my brains will leak out my ears any second now. What the hell is that!?

It takes me about ten minutes before I'll even risk opening my eyes again, and during that time, option number two moves itself front and center on the list of possible suspects. There's something wrong...

God, there's something really wrong this time. No simple insomnia, no easy fix...

Pretty much all I can do is sit here and think--or try not to.

* * *  



	2. Chapter 2

Dark and vicious, with claws and fangs as large as kitchen knives, the largest class nine I have ever seen swoops toward us, sending me sharply to one side as it scatters the others like so much chaff.

"Egon!" Peter's voice is just this side of panicked, and I struggle to my feet, heading for the DSD as I look up to see two proton streams lash out at the ten-foot-tall mass of velvet black. Only two...

"Ray! Winston!"

"Ray's out, man," Winston barks back, in full military mode now that the battle has been engaged. "You'd better get that damn thing working, Egon, or we're all toast!"

Yet, as fast as I work, I cannot seem to get the proper calibration settings.

"Egon! Damnit, hurry up!" Peter has crossed the line into panic somewhere along the way, and still, I cannot fire.

"If you can't get it set, at least come give us a hand!" Winston's fury finally makes me look up, and my heart stops at the sight.

Peter and Ray are both hanging limply from two of the nine's hands, their heads lolling. I cannot tell if they are breathing or not. As I watch on horror, a third hand snakes out to latch on to Winston, and I clearly hear his neck snap--

 

The dream releases me with a sharp shock of dread that doesn't leave me as I wake, and I take precious moments just assimilating the sounds around me. The number of cars outside the closed window speaks of early rush hour, and the heavy breathing across the room is Ray's. No other sound penetrates, and that alone is enough to pry my eyes open and send my hand out to grab my glasses.

Settling them on my face, I notice that both Peter and Winston are absent, their beds unmade. The clock reads 5:30, which is far too early for either of them to be up on a normal day. But we have had precious few of those lately.

Yesterday was the first time I remembered my own nightmares. Unlike Peter, I rarely remember my dreams, and, aside from the fact that I have been more tired than is normal, I've thought little of it. But yesterday morning it became apparent that I am not the only one having trouble sleeping, above and beyond Peter's current battle with the Beast. Winston was hardly himself all day, and Ray has been somewhat less buoyant than usual, even allowing for the shock of the Carmichael bust.

And now Winston has risen early. How early, I do not know. A strange component of my own problem appears to be a propensity for deep, unassailable slumber. I am not a heavy sleeper as a rule, and the fact that Winston's waking did not rouse me is cause for at least a bit of alarm.

I sit carefully on the edge of my bed, stretching with unaccustomed stiffness. This too is strange. Perhaps this is something more than a simple case of stress-related sleeping difficulties. I slip into trousers and a shirt, and head for the lab, but a bizarre weakness overcomes me and I find myself sitting abruptly on Peter's bed, trying to catch my breath.

This is not normal. This is not right. I should not be so palpably exhausted after nearly ten hours sleep--nor should I have been suffering weakness at all in the past few days. If it were only myself, I would simply consider seeing a doctor, suspecting some sort of virus or other medical condition.

Except that this simply does not feel medical. It feels... etheric. Different. And it is not just affecting me...

I need a meter--

"NO!!"

I turn swiftly to Raymond's bed at his cry, my head swimming slightly at the movement. He is sitting up now, grabbing for something--or likely, some*one*--that is not there, a look of complete desperation on his face. He is obviously deeply asleep.

"Ray?"

My call does nothing, and I walk toward him unsteadily, calling his name a bit louder. "Raymond, please wake up." His vacant stare is disturbing in the extreme, and I turn to get help when suddenly, help is here, in the form of our resident psychologist.

"Hey, Ray..." Peter steps around me, leaning over Raymond without touching him. His words have made no visible impression, and I wonder whether a medical doctor might not be called for after all. But then Peter reaches out and takes Ray's hand, and just the physical contact seems to be enough to break whatever spell Ray's sleep has over him. His eyes wide, they focus on Peter in shock, and he collapses against him. He doesn't sob--he doesn't make a sound--he simply shakes and accepts what comfort Peter can give.

"You okay, Tex?" Peter's voice is shaky as well, and I notice stark lines of pain around his eyes. "You awake now?"

Raymond takes a moment to gather himself before he nods briefly, looking past Peter's shoulder toward me. The stark fear is still there, and it frightens me more than my own increasing disability.

"I'm okay," he says finally, though neither of us believe him. "I just... That nightmare was..."

Peter nods reassurance. "Just a nightmare, pal. Okay?" He pulls back, leaving comforting hands on Ray's shoulders. "You're all right, Ray. It's over."

It isn't. It isn't over at all. Whatever is happening, it's getting worse.

***********

I'm so tired, I think I might fall asleep on the next bust.

Peter is driving this morning, because Winston looks just as bad as I feel. Egon's okay, but he's thinking deep thoughts--thoughts I don't think he wants to share with us. I try to focus on our next bust--the second one this morning--but my thoughts keep drifting back to that nightmare this morning.

I remember Mom and Dad's deaths really clearly. I figure it's just a part of that quirk in my memory that lets me remember almost anything I see, but sometimes, I hate that I can see almost everything from that night so exactly.

We were driving home from Aunt Lois's and it was snowing. Once we moved to Morrisville, it got kind of hard to see her as much as we wanted to, so we took every spare weekend Dad had and drove down to Brooklyn. Even in the dead of winter, we figured it was worth it. I think Mom thought Aunt Lois was good for me--she's always been the only one to let me say whatever I think, no matter how off the wall it is. Mom and Dad were great, but I bet I must have driven them up the wall with all that chatter.

The snow didn't seem so bad coming out of the city, and we were all pretty happy. As we headed into the thick forest, Dad was fiddling with the radio, just like Mom always told him not to do. They think it was the crack I got in my skull that makes me blank out the next couple of minutes after she scolded him, but I've figured out what must have happened. There was something in the road--a raccoon like the Carmichael's ghost, maybe, or a deer or something--and Dad didn't see it quickly enough to stop...

In the dream last night,  _I_  did. I saw it nearly a hundred yards before we would have hit it. And I didn't say a word, just kept playing in the back seat, ignoring the fact that I could have stopped my parents dying right there.

It's stupid, I know. They've been dead almost twenty-five years, so nothing I did in the dream last night could have stopped it... But it felt so real! Almost like I was finally remembering those lost few minutes. Like my subconscious knows I could have warned them. Which isn't  _true_! I know I didn't see anything! Wow, a deer in the road would have had me bouncing up and down, pointing it out as loudly as I could. I was that sort of kid--I'd never have--

"Here we are, folks." Peter turns in his seat, pulling my thoughts back to the present. "Anybody awake?"

There's a look in his eyes, now I'm actually concentrating, that I don't like. He's afraid of something, and I kind of think it's us. Like he wants to help us, but doesn't know how. Like he's afraid he's going to fail...

"We'll make it," Winston assures him, pulling himself out the door and around the back to grab his pack. I'm worried. I'm worried that we're all too tired to be safe on this bust. I'm worried that we're going to get ourselves--or each other--hurt because we can't pay attention.

Looking at Peter, as he surveys us before going in, I can see he's worried about the same thing.

"Guys." He spears each of us with a knowing glare, and Egon actually squirms. "Keep your eyes open, and your minds on the job." The look he gives me is a little softer, but his words chill me. "Anybody gets clocked because they were too busy snoozing is going to hear it from me."

His pep talk given, he claps me on the back and we head into the old office building. Hopefully, we won't have to worry on this one. A simple class two, wreaking havoc by throwing office supplies around. It should be a quick bust. An easy bust.

And, God willing, the last one for today.

*************

God hates me, that's what it is.

Egon's still limping from the two this morning that decided to play bowling for physicists with a file cabinet, and Ray's cheek is turning really interesting colors from the five that clocked him with a two-by-four this afternoon. Seven ghosts in all--a new record this spring--and we're finally home to lick our wounds. At least Zed and I came out of it with not much more than a headache between us.

Janine looks up in predictable shock as Egon limps toward her to hand off the latest paperwork.

"Oh, Egon!" She comes around her desk to take his arm, as if he couldn't possibly walk another step on his own. "What happened?"

He tells her, stiff as a board as usual. Damn, I need to get him a book or something. Reading about it is the only way to teach him how to catch the women that throw themselves at you. Even if those women come with annoying accents and irritating dispositions.

At least she has great legs.

Okay, I'm officially exhausted. Shaking my head at my wayward thoughts, I head for the stairs to the containment. Ray and Winston are so wiped right now, I'm afraid one of them would trip and go flying into the basement. Then we'd have a hell of a mess on our hands, wouldn't we?

Egon's still watching Winston, and I know he's going to bring up the question of why Zed wasn't in bed when Egon woke up this morning. Zed knows it too, so I'm not surprised to see that he's making himself scarce while Janine is stroking Egon's fevered brow.

The Spengster's worried. Well goodie--that makes two of us. This morning, I was just worrying about whatever the hell is wrong with me. Now I know I should be a lot more worried about the guys. They were waltzing around in a fog today... And while we didn't come out of it too much the worse for wear, if this keeps up, that fog is going to get us killed.

Two stray thoughts collide in my brain--one, maybe I should have Egon give us all a once-over with the meter, and two, what the hell am I doing sitting on the stairs. My headache flairs into a full blown migraine in seconds, and I'm sure I'm not getting up again any time soon.

"Peter?"

Of course, Egon's voice, full of concern and exhaustion, can pull me to my feet. No problem. I turn back up the stairs to look at him, squinting at the nimbus that seems to surround him all of a sudden.

"I'm okay, Spengs," I call in what I hope is a reassuring tone. "Just taking a breather."

"No doubt."

Okay, so I didn't fool him. This is supposed to come as a shock?

"Peter, I believe we have a problem." Just one? Jeez, Spengs, I was thinking we had at least two that I can name off the top of my head.

He walks down to me quietly, and I stay where I am--mostly because I'm afraid if I try to make it all the way down to the basement I'll make it the easy way, minus a few intact bones. He's watching me carefully, and I have to wonder what he sees. I know I've got bags under my eyes, but hell, I've always got those when the Beast gets cranky. But I wonder if he sees the fear I'm trying to hide. Fear for them, and me... and us....

"Peter..." He's searching my eyes. "Are you all right?"

"Look who's asking?" The almost bitter rejoinder is out before I can stop it, and he flinches at the truth in my query. He's not any more all right than I am.

"I... What happened this morning? With Winston?"

Okay, slight detour. I got it. If Petey won't talk about himself, surely he'll talk about his friends.

I shrug, trying to pass it off. "He had a nightmare. Couldn't get back to sleep, so I kept him company."

"He seemed to be sleeping just fine on the couch when I found him." Egon logic. He's sleeping okay now, so he must have been okay then. "And that hardly explains why he's been watching you like a hawk all day."

Okay. So not going there. Until I figure this out, I'm not going to give Egon and Ray any reason to worry. God knows they've got problems of their own right now. Speaking of...

"How'd  _you_  sleep last night, Spengs?" The question throws him for a loop--and don't think I didn't notice that my freak out at four made no impression at all on Mr. Light Sleeper, either, Egon. "Everything good?"

"You know very well--"

Gotcha.

"Peter," he grates, running a hand through his curl. It bounces right back, making me wonder--again--who cast a spell on it. "I'm worried about you. Talk to me."

The sincerity can't be denied, and I almost open my mouth to tell him. 'Hey Egon, I'm fine. Probably just a little brain tumor or something. No biggie.' That'd go over well.

"I'm more worried about the rest of  _you_ ," I answer, avoiding the question again. "If we don't get you some serious downtime soon, somebody's going to get hurt." I look at the foot he's not quite standing on and smile wryly. "Hurt worse, anyway."

"I agree." Good. "But perhaps what Winston and Ray and I are experiencing is connected to your own... problems."

"Problems?" Who me? "The only problem I have right now, aside from a little insomnia, is the fact that I can't get you guys through a night without somebody reliving hell."

"It's hardly your job--"

"The hell it's not!" The fact that I can't figure out what their problem is, combined with the fact that I think I know what mine is, turns suddenly into one tremendous snit, and I turn away from him, stomping down the stairs to the containment unit. "You're falling apart, Egon! If I can't figure this out..."

I hate that he's so much taller than me. He catches up to me in a second, and a warm hand on my shoulder turns me around. "Peter, we all have to figure this out."

My anger's gone in a heartbeat. He's right. He's right, he's right, I know he's right. This is way too big a problem, and I'm not going to solve it by myself. It's stupid for me to want to in the first place. Pass it off as fallout from the Beast, or my migraine, or whatever...

Damn. What the hell is wrong with me?!

"Headache?"

I startle, looking up at his concerned blue eyes, and watch in fascination as they melt away. Hell, everything's melting away...

Even me.

************

Egon keeps looking at me strangely, and I know what he's thinking: I should be up pacing the waiting room, just like I always do when we end up in the emergency room. But I'm too tired to do more than just sit here. Sit here and wait to find out what's wrong with Peter.

I keep replaying this afternoon in my mind. Seeing Egon struggling out of the basement with Peter unconscious in his arms, seeing the panic on his face and the tired worry on Winston's... Winston seems almost like he was expecting this. Like he knew it was going to happen.

At least there wasn't any blood. That would be just too much like my nightmare a couple of days ago for me to deal with.

"Winston, what happened this morning?"

Egon's question takes me by surprise, but it doesn't seem to faze Winston at all. He sighs tiredly, and leans forward, folding his hands together between his knees.

"I had another of those damn nightmares... I looked over at his bed and he was just passed out." He looks up and there's way too much worry in his eyes. "Not like he was sleeping... Like something just threw him there, unconscious."

"But he woke up, right?" I need to hear that he woke up, that he was fine. If he was fine then, maybe he'll be okay now, right?

But Winston shakes his head, blowing away my illusion. "He was freaked. I couldn't wake him up for a minute, but once I did... It was like he couldn't figure out whether he was awake or not." He sighs again, one hand going to the back of his neck to try to work out the kinks. "After that, there was no way either one of us was getting to sleep... We went downstairs, talked a little bit, and I guess I dozed off, because the next thing I remember is you waking me up for the bust, Egon." His eyes are bleak enough to send a thrill of fear through me as he looks at Egon. "What the hell is going on, man?"

Egon's studying the PKE meter he brought with him, and he doesn't say anything for a long, long time. Finally, he just raises his eyes, staring at the far wall.

"He's been worried about the rest of us." The non sequitir throws me off, but he continues. "I think maybe... I think maybe he knew something was wrong, but he didn't wish to worry us on his behalf."

That'd be just like Peter. If someone's having a problem, he'll ignore his own for as long as it takes to fix his friends.

I just hope he didn't wait too long this time.

*************

Hospital. I'm in a hospital.

Okay, fine.  _Why_  am I in a hospital?

"Dr. Venkman?"

A pretty blonde in a lab coat and scrubs is leaning over me. That's nice. I can deal with that. Now all she has to do is tell me why I'm here, how soon I can go home, and whether she'll have dinner with me this weekend.

"Dr. Venkman, can you hear me?"

"Shurm."

Okay, meant to say sure, but maybe she'll figure that out.

Her smile says she did, and she rewards my sterling clarity by shining a hellaciously bright light in my eyes. Thanks, honey. I really needed that jackhammer to go with the drums already in my skull.

"Do you know what day it is?"

"Um.... Thursday?" No, that's not right. "Friday."

"Friday it is, then." She's cute. Maybe I could get Egon to finally ask Janine out, and we can double date...

"You passed out at home, and your friends brought you here," she supplies pleasantly. Her eyes are darkly assessing as she watches my reaction. Which isn't much. I passed out?

Bits and pieces come back to me, and I remember fighting with Egon in the basement. I don't remember anything else, really. Just a big black nothing that makes me want to shiver.

"How long ago?"

"Nearly an hour and a half now." She grabs a clipboard and starts jotting down notes. "Now that you're awake, we'll want to do a series of tests, to see if we can determine why you felt the need to take such a drastic nap." She looks back at me warmly. "How do you feel now?"

How do I feel? ...Well, my head is about to explode, my eyes are fuzzier than they need to be, and I think I'm going to puke... "Not bad," I allow.

"I'm sure." Okay, don't use Egon's tone with me, young lady--

"Where're my friends?"

"In the waiting room." She gives me another once over and grins. "It'll take a little bit for the CAT scan to be scheduled. Why don't I let them come in and keep you company?"

Yeah, why don't you?

 

I'm pretty into the whole wallowing in pain routine when the curtain gets pulled back, showing me three worried Ghostbusters. Only them? What, Janine will wipe Egon's fevered brow, but not mine? Well, I like  _that_!

"Peter, how are you feeling?"

Ray's going to explode one of these days. All the worry and the enthusiasm and the pure damn energy in him is just going to rip him at the seams. He's about to fall over himself with the need for me to be all right.

"I'm okay, Tex," I tell him, trying to sound believable. "Just took a little nap."

"Like the 'breather' you took on the stairs?" Egon asks sharply. Uh-oh. Now I'm in trouble.

"Egon, it's nothing, really. Just some headaches."

"Headaches that are scaring the shit out of the rest of us," Winston reminds me. He feels guilty that he didn't say anything to Ray and Egon before now. I can see it in his eyes.

"If we hadn't had all those busts today, I really would have gone to the doctor, Zed. I promise."

"Yeah, right."

Okay, so I don't have the greatest track record when it comes to things like that. But the truth is, I really was going to go see a doctor. These little forays into unconsciousland are scaring the crap out of me, too!

"Do you remember your collapse this morning?" Egon asks carefully. The lines of worry around his eyes are only compounded by the exhaustion I know he's still feeling.

"I... I don't know, Egon." I can see he wants more than that, but I don't know what else to give him. "I was just... watching you guys sleep, and then--bam! Nothing." Nothing until I woke up convinced Zed was going to rip my arms off. I close my eyes, trying to banish the lingering feeling of rough hands on my arms.

Oh, this is  _so_  not good.

"Peter, I'd like to take a PKE reading."

I look up at him, squinting against the light. "You think I've got a ghost?"

He just looks at me curiously, raising that eyebrow. I sigh at the inevitable.

"Knock yourself out, Egon."

He switches the meter on, and it just sits there. No beeps, no lights... Just little old Petey here, thanks.

"Perhaps a review of your biorhythms..."

He points the meter at me again just as I'm caught up in a firestorm. Pain so hot I can't breathe rushes through me, and I'm gasping for breath, dimly hearing Ray's startled cry, and Winston's bellow for the doctor. Oh God! Oh God, it hurts! It's like every nerve I own is screaming at me and I can't get them to stop!

Shit! Please stop! Please, please, please,  _please_  stop!

That flat darkness is almost welcoming, and I fall into it knowing that, at least there, I won't feel any pain.

*************

Egon's got something brewing in that head of his. And I don't like it one damn bit.

Pete was still out of it when they took him for the CAT scan, and they still didn't find anything to explain why he passed out like that. Egon said he seemed like he was in a lot of pain this afternoon just before he keeled over, and he sure seemed to be in a world of hurt just now...

Damnit, I  _knew_  I should have told the guys about last night! If I had, we'd've cancelled that bust this morning and taken him straight here. And maybe we wouldn't be in this room, waiting to find out if he's going to wake up again.

I swear, if Egon points that damn PKE meter at me one more time, I'm going to clock him. Every time he does it, he frowns and does his little "hmmm," like I'm his newest science experiment. What the hell's he hoping to find anyway? Whatever it is, I'm sure it can't help Peter.

I'm not sure what can, actually.

Ray's just sitting, and I can see his eyes close every once in a while, like his body's begging to doze off but his mind won't let it. I go over and sit next to him, looking at him closely. He looks rough--rougher than he should, even given where we are.

"It's okay to try to rest, man," I reassure him, patting his knee. "I think we're all going to end up needing it."

He shakes his head. "I can't Winston. I'm okay... I just can't sleep."

"Won't sleep, you mean."

His eyes give him away, eyes that hold too much fear. Fear for Pete, and for himself, and of whatever's been haunting his dreams the last few days...

"I ever tell you about Sparky?"

He looks up at my change of subject, reluctant interest in his eyes. "Who's Sparky?"

I can't help the smile I get--Sparky could always do that to me. "He was this kid we had in my platoon back in Nam. A lot like you, actually--though he was a whole lot younger." I grin again as he takes silent umbrage at the disclaimer. "He was seventeen--lied to get in, like a lot of kids did. Thought he was ready for anything the VC wanted to throw at him..."

Ray gives me a minute to collect myself before he prompts me to continue. "What happened to him?"

"Six weeks after he got there, we were caught in an ambush that took out half the platoon..." My voice thickens with the memory, but I keep going. I'm actually going somewhere important with this, and Sparky would have loved to think he was important to somebody. "He and Doc and I were trapped in a gully, shooting at whatever seemed to move, praying we'd get them before we ran out of ammo...

"Doc went down first. Caught a round in his chest. He was still breathing okay, and almost conscious, but he was way too exposed by that point..." Ray's riveted, and Egon's even put aside the damn meter to listen to me. Least someone gets to hear about how brave you were, Spark. Stupid as all hell, but brave.

"We had to get him under cover if we had a chance in hell of getting him to the LZ in time to save him, but I got pinned down by sniper fire, and Sparky was the only chance Doc had." I can't believe my hands are shaking again after all these years... But then, it ain't just the memory that's hitting me today. At least not the memory of Sparky. "He jumped right out into the open, grabbing Doc and pulling him back under cover. Had to be the dumbest thing I'd ever seen!"

"But it worked?" Ray asks quietly.

"Oh yeah, it worked all right..." I drop my eyes back to my hands and sigh. "But it didn't do any good. He took two rounds in the gut with that stunt... No way we could keep him going until extraction..."

There's a long moment of silence, and I pull myself together, waiting for the inevitable question. I'm surprised to hear it come from Egon.

"What made you think of that?" he asks gently, trying to spare my feelings. "Is that what you've been dreaming about these past few days?"

I bring my head up and meet his eyes, and I know what I must look like. Burnt out and tired. And God, I surely am.

"Not quite that memory," I tell him, focusing on Ray, and seeing Sparky in his eyes. "Lately, it's been Ray." I look back into Egon's shocked blues. "And you."

Ray grabs my arm comfortingly. "Gosh, Winston, that must be awful! How can you even try to sleep? I know mine aren't anywhere near as bad, and I can't--"

He breaks off, red-faced, and I smile a gentle gotcha at him. "Ray... The dreams are bad, don't get me wrong... But I sleep because I know you guys are actually going to be there when I wake up." I reach a hand up to clasp the one he's holding me with. "We'll be here, buddy," I reassure him in a whisper. "Just try, okay?"

He nods, unsure of the truth I'm telling him, and releases my arm, settling back warily. A few more minutes have his eyelids drooping again, and I sigh as he finally drifts off. I meant what I said. I'll be here. Ain't nothing in the world would take me away till he wakes up.

*************

I marvel at Winston sometimes. His strength is so quiet and so very unobtrusive, yet he is always ready with just the right words in any situation. I relax slightly as Ray slips into sleep, glad that at least one of us might come out of this day more rested than he came in.

Raymond can do that now... Because Peter isn't here.

I've formulated the most bizarre, most ludicrous, and most frightening hypothesis since Peter was wheeled away from us. A hypothesis based upon the cool, calm, scientific logic I usually find so comforting. It is a logic that I damn now, because this will change everything. It will change our friendships, our livelihood, perhaps our souls if we allow it.

But we won't allow it. We cannot. Peter's problem can be dealt with--and must be. But I do not know if we can bear even the price of knowing what that problem is.

Yet the meter readings are undeniable. I believed, at first, that the key to our problems--both Peter's episodes and our own nightmares--was etheric in nature. That a ghost could somehow circumvent our careful safeguards is certainly not impossible. Indeed, one is bound to sooner or later. But the readings indicate nothing of a supernatural bent. At least nothing inhuman.

No, what my readings show is all too human, though of a higher scale than that at which most humans work. Psychokinetic energy is not simply found in ghosts, but in many live people with... enhanced capabilities. We have always known that Peter had such tendencies--ever since we were in college. Since we ran the cards "just for fun" and realized that he scored consistently above norm.

He is also prone to sleep disorders--another sign of psychic ability... Beyond his uncanny knack for locating ghosts without a meter and knowing when the phone will ring, these findings could be seen to be significant.

Especially as I review the playback on this meter, which I have done frequently in the last hour.

I have taken careful readings of all of us during that time, comparing the signatures to those I keep on file in the meter's memory. Ray, Winston, and I all show significant drops in our baseline energy readings. These could perhaps be explained by the sheer lack of useable sleep we've been experiencing lately.

They could, but I know deep down that they are not. A better, more  _logical_  assumption is that the increase in Peter's overall energy--which so nearly matches it in sum--is caused by the flow of energy from us to him.

In essence, Peter has become a siphon.

I can barely bring myself to believe it, but I cannot simply dismiss it out of hand. It does make sense, after all. He is not nearly so surly as he usually gets this far into a bout of insomnia, and his headaches are consistent with psi-induced episodes frequently seen in those whose psychic abilities are newly manifested...

I feel sick. This cannot be happening.

Against my will, my mind conjures up more facts to substantiate this terrifying theory: His use of dreams to siphon the energy is understandable, given his own curious sleep disorders. Perhaps it is even the mix of borderline narcolepsy and occasional though persistent insomnia that causes it to manifest in this way. There are numerous cases of psychics who feed off of the dreams of others, intensifying their power in an effort to extract what they need...

Winston found him in the middle of an episode just after he himself woke from a particularly disturbing nightmare, and it seems only his physical touch was able to bring Peter out of it. Much the same way that an empath is able to ground or detach himself through physical means...

And the meter... Psychic feedback is a well researched field, and many psychics have been known to blow circuits in monitoring equipment simply through the force of their own brainwaves feeding back on themselves. In an untried psychic, perhaps even remote reflection is enough to cause this phenomenon, though the psychic's shielding is weak enough for the power to feed back on him...

My gaze wanders with my thoughts, and I find myself watching Ray and Winston, the former sleeping as the latter stands guard. They won't believe this--any more than I wish to. Any more than Peter will... God. If I am right--and logic dictates that I am--Peter will not deal with it well at all. He all but ran from suggestions of his abilities when we were in college. How much more will he do it now, when he will see himself as a danger to us? When  _we_  will see the danger as plainly as he?

How am I supposed to tell him this, and hope to keep him sane?

***********

I creep out of the darkness into green. Pure, lurid green, spinning around me in swirls that make me more nauseated than I thought a person could be. I can hear yelling, panicked screams for help--help I can't give--and I shudder at the sound. There's another sound overlaying it: fierce, high-pitched buzzing, like a million tiny jetfighters circling my head... And it's cold. Freezing, bitterly cold...

And I feel like I'm dying.

"Dr. Venkman? Dr Venkman, can you hear me?"

I slide out of the green thankfully, feeling the world right itself, despite the pain. And there's so much less pain. I almost smile at the difference. The last time I was in the world, pain was all too present.

"Dr. Venkman?"

I open my eyes cautiously, but the room is nearly dark, and they don't protest too much. There's a blonde standing over me, looking familiar. And I'm in a hospital. Again. Funny how hospitals just _feel_  like hospitals, huh?

"Are you awake?"

"Dunno..." My voice sounds like sand. "Am I?" I think I should be scared. Because I really don't know the answer.

She tilts her head beautifully, and wrings a smile from my lips, though the rest of me is too tired to respond likewise.

"I think we'll call you as awake as you're going to get," she allows, turning to check a monitor to my left. I wonder where the guys are. Aren't they usually here when I'm in the hospital? I'm sure they are. As a matter of fact, I'm positive.

"Where are my friends?"

Her face clouds a little, and I fight to remember why I'm here... Oh, that's right. I fainted. No, I passed out. Real men don't faint. But if I just fainted, then why are the guys not here?

"Are they okay?" I ask quickly, hoping she'll smile and nod.

She smiles all right, but it's a smile I learned to use myself a long time ago. I did some months in a clinic for the criminally insane, and that's the smile you use when they tell you the voices in their heads told them to kill their therapists.

"Dr. Spengler has been waiting to speak to you."

Just Egon? Where the hell are Winston and Ray?

"I'll get him for you."

As she leaves, I try to summon up the energy to get out of bed. I have to find the guys. Something's really,  _really_  wrong, and I need to see them! The reason I'm weak as a kitten--as well as the reason I'm not screaming in pain--is hanging from an IV pole next to my bed, and I carefully pull off the tape surrounding the needle in my arm. Pulling out the needle itself makes me a little queasy, but at least now the clear fluid is running out on the bed and not into my veins. I'd love to say that it's a quick fix, but I'm still not up to battling much more than a paper airplane.

Airplanes? No, fighter jets. Tiny, buzzing little fighter jets....

Okay,  _that's_  a weird thought! Wonder where that came from?

"Peter, how are you feeling?" Egon comes in, walking on eggshells. Shit, what the hell went wrong now?

"Where are Ray and Winston?" I demand, just this side of panic. "Are they okay?"

He nods quickly, but he's still watching me like a hawk as he sits beside the bed. "They're out in the waiting room."

"But I want them in here." I think it's a reasonable request--for a four-year-old.

"Peter..." Here comes bad news, Egon style. "I believe we may have... found the reason for your current episodes..."

Shit. It's a tumor after all, isn't it? I'm dying, and they left it to Spengs to tell me the bad news.

"So, am I dying, or something?" I try for flip, and it comes out flop. Ain't that always the way?

I wish he'd smile. I made a funny, right? But instead, he just leans forward and clasps his hands in front of him.

"Peter... I know this will be difficult to believe, but..."

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

"You're shittin' me."

Did I say difficult?

"Oh, come on, Egon. Tell me you're shittin' me!"

Perhaps I should have said impossible.

Yet despite all appearances, Peter Venkman can be swayed by logic. I calmly lay out what evidence I have: the statistics of psychic ability, of which he is all too aware, the fact that all the medical tests in the world have failed to find an organic fault that might be causing his debilitating condition... And of course the meter readings, though I refrain from pulling out said meter, afraid to throw him into another of his fits.

After the first few moments, he simply sits and listens, his face growing ever paler. As I wind down, I see that old stubborn streak come to the fore.

"You've got to be wrong, Spengs," he assures me. "I'm a lot of things--but I'm not psychic." He shakes his head, denying the inevitable. "I'm not."

I have little to say to that. He knows I'm not making up any of these findings, and he is actually a better parapsychologist than I am. He always has been. That he has ever had a flair for this field of study is another interesting coincidence that chills me to the bone.

He seems unable to say anything, and I bridge the growing gap between us carefully.

"Despite the test results, they've decided to keep you overnight."

He nods, a creeping exhaustion in his features. Exhaustion, and a wary terror. "Good." He meets my eyes with difficulty and takes a deep breath. "You guys should go home. Get some sleep."

Without him to disturb us? The completion of his thought is plain on his face, as is the growing guilt that I desperately wish I could combat. But how can I convince him that none of this is his fault when it is obvious that something within him is causing the problem. It isn't his own conscious decision, but the damage is being done nonetheless.

Into the silence comes the sound of dripping fluids, and I scan the side of the bed curiously, catching up the discarded IV needle and brandishing it with quiet reproach as I reach up to shut the valve and stop the leakage. "Peter... I'm quite certain they meant this to remain attached."

"They did," he agrees shortly. "I didn't." Again, there is an overwhelming guilt in his eyes as they meet mine a second time. "You should go."

Anger flairs in me suddenly, and I cannot stop it from bubbling forth. "I'm hardly going to leave you here alone, Peter." Especially not now. If I leave, he will only feel more isolated. More strange. Despite his fits of ego, Peter has never wanted to be different--not like this.

"Alone?" He snorts, a painful, self-mocking sound. "I'm in a hospital full of people, Spengs! How could I--"

His voice trails off as he leans forward, rocking slightly in agitation. "Oh God, Spengs... The hospital..." He turns stricken eyes on me. "What if I... What if I do something to somebody here?" Visions of death and guilt are too obvious in his eyes. "All the people on life support..." He falls back, exhausted by his conclusions--conclusions I cannot refute. "Shit, Egon. How the hell do I stop this?"

I don't know. I don't know how to stop this--I don't even really know if it _can_ be stopped. What I do know is that we are not leaving Peter alone for a second. I have informed Ray and Winston of my findings, and they have agreed to go home tonight, leaving me to monitor him for any sudden rises in his biorhythms. His doctor is skeptical, but she has given permission to sedate him heavily should... something occur.

I am trying to wipe scenes of Peter, drugged and senseless for the duration, out of my mind as my eyes wander to find him staring at me in tortured silence. He is already distancing himself, already trying to remove the threat. I cannot let that happen.

I take hold of his hand fiercely, watching him flinch and wondering what he senses through what used to be a simple contact. His eyes squint against a sudden pain, but I believe it is mostly psychological, and I wish my favorite psychologist were here and present to calm him.

"Peter... We _will_ stop this. I promise you." He shakes his head despondently. "There are a number of places we can look to for help--you know most of them yourself."

"Maybe Professor Xavier needs a new student," he quips hopelessly. The pop culture reference is a typical Venkman ploy for space, but I will not give it to him now. A little space could become a gulf all too easily.

"Peter." God, what can I say to him? What can I do to help when there is nothing to be done? "I'm not leaving."

He studies me for a long moment, taking in, no doubt, the dark circles I know I sport beneath my eyes, the lines of fatigue that are only likely to get worse as the night wears on... And yet, he must see my determination, as well, and the love I have for him, because his hand grips mine briefly before slipping out of my grasp, and he offers a weak grin. "You'd better have a great big pot of coffee ready, Egon. Because if you think I'm letting you sleep anywhere near me..."

"I will stay awake, Peter," I promise him.

He nods, believing me completely for the first time tonight.

"So will I."

I cannot help but believe him. In fact, I fear he may never wish to sleep again.

***********

Neither of us can seem to get up the energy to get out of the car.

Winston's sitting next to me, and I can feel the disbelief coming off of him in waves. He didn't say a thing to Egon, but I know he doesn't believe a word of the evidence.

He doesn't, but I have to.

"This isn't happening."

His words deny it, but I can tell by the weight of them that he knows it is.

"We'll fix it," I vow, knowing we may not be able to, but unwilling to really believe it. People wake up to find themselves gifted all the time. The adjustment time is usually hell, but many people like Peter live pretty normal lives.

The fact that just as many fill mental institutions is making me sick to my stomach.

"We're missing something," he mutters, turning to me in panic. "We have to be! Ray, there's just no way that--" He breaks off with a sigh of frustration, slamming a hand into the steering wheel. "Shit."

I look up and survey the garage, wondering if anything here is going to be right ever again. We called Janine from the hospital, and told her to go ahead and go home. We told her everything was going to be okay. I can't believe Winston could even get the words out when he said them. How is anything ever going to be okay again?

"We should..." I snort. What the hell should we do? "We should go upstairs."

It's eleven thirty. We should go upstairs to bed. I didn't have a single dream when I was sleeping in the waiting room. I woke up rested for the first time in days, to find the world so screwed up that I don't think I'll ever sleep again.

And neither will Peter.

I know Egon was right--I know we should stay here, provide the smallest distraction possible until we find a way to help Peter get control of this. But he's only got Egon with him. He shouldn't even be that alone--not right now. Gosh, not ever!

He didn't meet my eyes when we went in to say goodnight. He wouldn't even let me touch him. Just sat there and stared at the wall, answering us only if we asked him direct questions. He's afraid to be anywhere near us--afraid he'll hurt us again.

But gosh, this isn't his fault at all! It's not like he's doing it on purpose! But he hurt us, and he'll never forgive himself for that. No matter what we say, no matter how quickly we fix this, he's always going to look at us and see what he did...

"I don't think I can, Ray."

I turn to Winston, watching him as he tenses up.

"I don't think I can go up there without him and act like everything is normal." His voice is an octave low, and he sounds like he's going to cry. He doesn't want to believe this... But he can't deny it anymore.

I reach out to grasp his shoulder, squeezing it in comfort. He smiles a little, but I know neither of us are going to sleep tonight.

Neither of us are going to sleep ever again.

************

They turned the IV back on. I want to pull it out again, but Egon's watching me like a hawk, his PKE meter far enough away that it only hurts a little. Of course, the morphine is probably holding a lot of the pain at bay. But it's making me sleepy, and if I sleep, I don't know what I'll do to somebody.

I don't know what more I'll do to Egon.

He's watching the movie we threw in my hospital room's VCR, pretending to be engrossed in Mel Gibson running around in his kilt. But he isn't paying attention to anything but me, and he shouldn't. Not when I've already proven I can do so much damage.

I wish I _was_ dying. Funny how a brain tumor doesn't sound so bad when you put it up against being a menace to society for the rest of your life, huh? At least if I had something like that in my head, I wouldn't be worried about whether my friends would still be around when I woke up.

Not that I'm ever planning on sleeping again.

"So, Egon," I say, trying to sound bright and cheery. I bet I sound like death warmed over, but I'm not up to pretending too much right now. "What's the plan?"

He turns to me fully, abandoning the farce of watching the boob tube, and his eyes are considering. Sizing up the threat, probably.

"There are a number of options, actually," he assures me. Given that I'm a damn fine parapsychologist myself--one who actually did his dissertation on psychic phenomena--I wait for the inevitable company line.

"The Arkham Institute for Psychical Research has a number of programs for... adjusting to new onsets." He swallows thickly and continues. "We could see about getting an independent researcher to come to the firehouse..."

Here comes the kicker. The thing he's been holding off on since he figured it out. The thing I've been dreading hearing, because hearing it is only going to make this whole nightmare real.

"There are..." He clears his throat nervously. "Certain psychoactive drugs that could be used..." He trails off, probably thinking I'll give him my usual 'just say no' speech. But the thing is, if it'll keep me from torturing them, I'll do the drugs. Damn, I'd kill Betty Ford for them if it'll just stop this.

He understands the substance of my thoughts so well that I wonder if I'm broadcasting now, in addition to being a brain-sucker. His hand on mine is warm, but I feel the same dark energy racing toward me at the contact, and I pull away in fear. I'm doing it even now. Every time he touches me, I'm doing it!

"Peter..." He grabs my hand again, and holds on. I can feel the tears building as I try to get away from the contact.

"Egon, don't." I squirm from him, sliding off the bed on the other side, trying to keep it between us. I can feel the IV rip out of my vein on its own this time, but it's a distant pain, and it's only physical. "Don't touch me. It's not--" my voice breaks as the tears finally fall. "It's not the healthiest thing for you right now."

He stands and comes around the bed, and I'm just too tired to fight him anymore as he wraps me in a hug. At least he's only touching a little skin this way. The pull into my energy isn't as great. It's funny, I can feel the pull, I can sense that the energy is only flowing one way, but it doesn't seem like I'm getting anything out of it...

"It is the healthiest thing for _you_ , Peter," Egon whispers, his head propped up on mine as we just stand there. After a minute, though, I feel him start to sag, and I jerk away. I'm a selfish fucking bastard, aren't I? Not content to suck his energy out through crushing nightmares, now I have to use pleas for sympathy to get my fix!

He knows why I pulled away, and he's swaying a little on his feet as he traces a hand through the blood that's magically appeared on my forearm.

"They're going to run out of veins for the IV, Peter," he chastises. "Maybe you'd better leave it in this time."

I shake my head. The only thing the damn morphine is doing is holding the worst of my headache at bay. My physical pain is about the least important thing going right now. "I don't need it, Egon. I'm fine."

His eyes darken, and I'm terrified all over again, as I finally understand why he wanted to have them hook me back up in the first place. His words just confirm what I already know.

"Peter... The morphine isn't just for your comfort. Studies have shown that..."

"That psychic events are less frequent when the subject's anesthetized," I finish for him, sighing at the impossibility of this whole situation. Okay fine. Drugged to the hilt, it is. I slide placidly back under the covers, watching him with despair as he exits the room, looking for another vampire to stick me again.

I'll be good. Hell, I'll be golden. They want me drugged, I'll stay drugged.

Just don't let me hurt them again. Please?

I think that might just about kill me.

**********

I can't sleep.

Exhaustion is pulling at me as I lie here in the dark, only Ray's heavy breathing disturbing the air, but I can't even close my eyes.

I can't even believe this is really happening. I mean, I've seen a lot of weird shit since I started hanging with these guys, but Peter, psychic? No way. And no way is he some kind of brain sucking nutjob now. He wouldn't do that to us. Pete wouldn't hurt anybody--least of all his best friends.

But Ray and Egon--who are closer to being parts of Peter than just friends--buy it. They both think this whole thing is perfectly plausible.

I think we've all gone off the deep end.

Ray whimpers in his sleep, and I've got to wonder what he's dreaming about. Pete, probably. I know he's had a couple of doozies about his parents since the Carmichael bust, but I bet you even money he's seeing Peter, glowing with some unearthly fire, reaching out and killing people as he screams against it.

Shit, that's what I'm seeing, and I'm not even sleeping.

Pete's gotta be dying over this. Even if they're all nuts and it's something else entirely, I know Pete believes it. I could see it in the way he all but flinched when one of us came near his hospital bed. He's afraid of us--afraid of himself and what he'll do to us. He's going to take off, first chance he gets.

I know it.

Shaking Ray from his nightmare is a little harder than I want it to be, but he finally jerks awake with a cry of Pete's name, and I know I've won my bet. His eyes are red-rimmed, but he's not crying. Just really, really tired...

"Winston? What...?"

"We're going back to the hospital," I tell him. It sounds more like a command than any one my LT ever gave me back at Da Nang. "We're getting Peter out of there."

"But Winston, Egon said..."

"Screw what Egon said," I break in coldly. "You honestly think Pete's gonna sit in that hospital, thinking about all the damage he could do?"

Ray's eye widen as he catches my drift, and he's on his feet in a second, pulling on clothes. "Gosh, Winston! I never thought of that. I bet he thinks if he could do it to us, he could do it to everybody there, too." His face falls in tragedy. "It would just kill him if he hurt somebody else."

"He's not hurting anybody, homeboy," I assure him, that feeling of wrongness thrusting itself on me again. Whatever this is, it ain't Pete causing it. "We're gonna make sure he knows it."

Ray thinks I'm fooling myself, and I couldn't care less. I don't care if he thinks I'm seeing pink elephants, as long as he gets his ass down to Ecto so we can go get Pete.

Cause whatever's got him, I'm damned if I'll let it keep him.

***********

Shit! I fell asleep! Waking from visions of close green wetness and eternal buzzing, I look around the darkened room in confusion. Hospital. I'm in the hospital and---

Damnit. Egon!

Maybe it's the morphine, making me more aware of myself, but I can see... a rope. A fucking glowing rope of energy, snaking out from me to him. The rope breaks off into three, before it hits him, shearing off strings that I just know are headed for Winston and Ray.

Stop it. I have to stop this damn thing!

A shard of pain runs through my head as I think it, but I fight against it, the morphine giving me the buffer I need to break through. There's someone else here. Some _thing_ else. Shit! What the hell is inside me!? Why can't I see it!?

The rope shimmers and tries to fray, but another blast of pain has it strengthening, and I can't stop it.

"Egon!"

My cry comes out a strangled gasp, but I struggle against the pain that robs my sight and try again. "Egon! Wake up!!"

He jerks. Once. And the whimpers of his dream continue. A dark, cold energy is running along the rope from him to me, and I put a hand to my temple, trying to feel where the rope connects. Trying to claw it away before Egon's energy can get to me.

"No! No fucking way!" I can't feel it with my hands, but a deep thrum of power reaches me through the conduit, and I can feel myself screaming.

"NO!!!"

Something breaks, and I'm falling. I'm falling into that terrifying black nothing I've seen before, and I can only hope, as it swallows me whole, that Egon will survive it...

That Egon will survive _me_.

***********

We reach Peter's floor just in time to hear a scream erupt from his room, and we're running, Winston pulling ahead of me to burst in and stop dead. I push past him, looking at the scene in disbelief.

Egon's slumped in a chair, shock and pain vivid in his blue eyes, and Peter...

Peter's...

"Egon!" Winston's moving, clearing the way for the nurse that runs in, heading from Peter's bed. "What the hell happened? Are _you_ all right?"

We can both see Peter isn't. I turn from Egon's chair, and take in the sight of Peter, flung out hard on the sheets, one ear leaking a tiny trail of blood. He looks...

"Is he all right?"

Egon's tiny query is shot through with pain, but he sags back down in relief as the nurse confirms that at least Peter's breathing. She's looking at Peter's ear in worry, pressing the call button and sending one of the other nurses to get a doctor. His heart monitor shows a stable rhythm, but he just looks so... I don't think the word, but as I turn back to Winston, I can see it in his eyes.

He looks so dead.

"Egon?"

Winston's question doesn't get much response, and Egon's way too pale. I reach out a hand to his arm, and he flinches back. As I try again, and actually grab hold, I feel a jolt of pain shoot through me. It's all I can do to keep hold of him.

"Egon, what happened?"

He finally tracks toward my voice, his eyes latching on to mine in shock. "We've been fools, Ray," he murmurs, full of self-loathing. "I was so sure... And now..."

"Egon, please, man..." Winston grabs hold of his shoulders, and Egon doesn't flinch as Winston's fingers grip him tight. "Make some sense here. What are you talking about?"

"Peter's... possessed."

"No." No. Peter can't be possessed. If Peter was possessed, it would have shown up on the meters. It _has_ to show up on the meters!

I grab the one next to Egon's chair and point it at Peter, recalibrating it for general energy readings. Nothing.

"Egon, nothing shows up." I try for a reasonable tone, but the flurry of activity as a doctor and another nurse rush in has me shaken. They're leaning over Peter's bed, muttering about CTs and EEG readings and... other things I don't want to think about. "Nothing shows up at all."

Egon shakes his head. "I... saw it, Raymond." His shivering begins as a slight thing, rolling into a full blown seizure. "It came... out of him for a moment..."

It can't be. The meter proves it! Whatever Egon saw--

"Gentlemen?" A small Asian woman steps up to us from the group around Peter's bed. She must be the doctor on call tonight. Arilin Chong, her nametag says. She stares at the meter with something like irritation in her eyes, and I shut it down and put it away. It isn't registering anything, anyway. Whatever Egon saw, it isn't registering a thing.

"We will need to take your friend up for a CAT scan immediately." She sighs, gripping her stethoscope unconsciously. "He appears to have had some sort of... neurological episode."

Stroke.

Neurological episode... isn't that the phrase for stroke? That's it, isn't?

Somehow, I can't get past that thought, and I barely hear Egon asking about his condition, or Dr. Chong telling him that they don't know, or Winston trying to get me to sit down as they wheel Peter out...

And I don't know how long I'm going to sit here before I find out how much worse things can get.

********

I hope I'm actually dead this time.

If I'm dead, at least I don't have to worry about what the hell is going on, or why I can still almost _feel_ the guys somewhere too far away from me, or what the hell I've become that makes me so fucking terrified.

Can I be dead now? Please?

A loud whir and a clank roll over my right side, and I force my eyes open to find that my fondest wish has come true. I'm in a coffin.

A _lighted_ coffin? Okay, that was a weird choice, guys.

Another whir and clank, sort of vague and hard to hear, rolls over me, and I realize that I'm not dead after all. Master of the concussion, I've had enough CT scans to recognize the scanner when I'm in it. I'm not dead.

But are the guys? Is Egon?

Somehow, I know they're okay. Somehow, I can feel them, feel their worry. But Ray feels numb... and I wonder what made him that way.

Me, of course.

The clanks and whirs end, and I hear the door to the chamber open, as someone pulls me out. Dr. Chong is standing over me as I come out, and I try for a smile.

"Hey, Doc. No sleep tonight, huh?"

She smiles back, but she's worried. "Not with you screaming bloody murder and your friends' little toy screaming even louder." She takes on a stern stance. "I may have to confiscate it if they keep it up."

The meter. Yeah, I bet it really went crazy when I blew Egon's brain.

"My friends?" I have to ask. I don't want to know, but I better get it over with now.

"Dr. Spengler is sleeping. And Dr. Stantz and Mr. Zeddemore are keeping a close eye on him."

"Is Egon okay?"

She pauses long enough for me to really worry, but her voice holds both sympathy _and_ hope, and I breathe a sigh of relief. "It's nothing that a good night's sleep wouldn't cure, Dr. Venkman, I assure you." She grins speculatively. "He's far more worried about you."

I nod, wincing at the pain. "How many brain cells did I trash this time?" I don't have a whole lot of them left, after college.

"Not too many," she allows. That tells me a lot, Doc. Thanks. She ushers a timid nurse forward, and they stick me yet again. An IV bag appears beside my gurney, and I almost relish the feeling of the painkillers rushing into my system.

Maybe they'll keep the beast at bay. Not my Beast... but me. There's a new beast in town, and his name is Peter Venkman.

"Can I see Winston and Ray?"

They'd better not let me see Egon. Not if he's sleeping. Definitely not then.

*********

Peter's going to be okay.

I think.

He looks better as they wheel him back into his room, but his gaze shifts to the bed they brought in for Egon in panic. I rush forward, watching him try to split his worry between the two of us. Winston just gazes calmly from the corner, waiting for everything to happen.

"Peter? How are you feeling?"

It wasn't a stroke. They don't know what the hell it was, but he hasn't got brain damage or anything. He blew out his left eardrum, and they've got a wad of cotton stuck there. They don't know how he did that, either, but they're looking into it.

Not like it's going to help us now.

He just grins a little timidly, and doesn't say a word. He's afraid to be too near Egon, and I don't know if I blame him. Egon was pretty freaked by whatever happened tonight, and I'm sure it must have been hell on Peter, too. We couldn't get much out of Egon before he just collapsed, but the doctor says he'll be okay. He's just drained.

I'll bet he is.

"You should take Egon home."

Peter's soft command is full of anger, and I know he hates himself for this. God, it's so unfair! He'd never hurt us!

"We'll stay right here, buddy," Winston tells him, pushing off from the wall and heading over as the orderly locks Peter's bed in place. "Right where we're supposed to be."

"Peter, what happened?"

He won't answer me. He's going to say he doesn't know, or he doesn't remember, because whatever happened was so horrible for him that he won't want to let us know about it.

He watches me for a second, smiling darkly at something only he can see, and sighs. "Egon broke the cardinal rule. He fell asleep."

I just look my confusion at him, and he hides his face in his hands, bringing the fists up to ruffle his own hair furiously.

"I... couldn't stop it, Ray." There's real panic in his voice, and an edge of hysteria that I just can't stand to hear. "It just lashed out and... sucked at him."

"It?"

I turn, watching Winston as he stares at Peter carefully.

Peter nods, too tired to do anything else. I think the painkillers are getting to him, but it's mostly just the situation. The situation he thinks he caused.

"Yeah. A big ole rope--like something from _Star Trek_ , you know." His hands are back at his sides, but the fists clench at intervals as he tries to control his anger. "God... It didn't even touch me--I couldn't even feel the energy coming in... It just..." His gaze centers on Egon again, like he's looking for evidence of the episode. "It just came out of him."

Winston's grabbed Egon's meter, and he's fiddling with it. But it's still quiet! Gosh, I wish Egon would wake up. If he could tell us what he saw, we'd know what to do next.

A nurse comes in, looking at Winston in irritation.

"Could you _please_ refrain from using that--ever again?" she asks, gesturing to the meter.

We just stare. The meter is dead! It's not registering anything!

Peter sits up suddenly, as if he's realized something.

"What is it doing?" He asks her the question like it's a matter of life and death.

She looks back like he's nuts. "I know you blew out an eardrum tonight, but surely you can hear that damn squealing?"

Oh God! The meter!

I reach for it, grabbing it from Winston and turning down the volume. Which sort of seems worthless, since I can't see that it's doing anything anyway. I flip it over to Peter's biorhythms, and get a very quiet, steady beeping. He's still on the high side--even more powerful than before. Turning it back to general readings, I thrust it at the befuddled nurse.

"What do the numbers at the top of the screen say?" Peter and Winston are watching me, waiting for a miracle. A miracle that I'm pretty sure I can provide.

"You're kidding me, right?" she asks, looking at each of us in turn.

As her gaze meets Winston's he steps forward gently. "Lady, if you can read something there besides zeroes, you might just get a medal."

She sighs at us, and starts rattling off... Gosh, these numbers are just wild... No wonder we couldn't see anything! And I even think I know what it is!

I feel a smile spread over my face, and turn to Peter, watching a matching grin blossoming for him.

"Peter? Congratulations! You're possessed!"

**********

I'm possessed.

You know, there was a time--say, last week--when those words would have sent me into a screaming freak out. Watt was... bad. It took me a long time to deal with what that demon did to me--what he made me do. I spent nearly six months trying to grapple with the fact that I couldn't have stopped it. I mean, it wasn't like I didn't try! But after a while, he beat me down, and I sat in the tiny little corner of my mind that Watt left to me, and screamed, and watched everything he made me do.

No. Everything he made my _body_ do. It wasn't me.

It isn't me.

It absolutely is not me.

"Sounds powerful."

Winston's voice is considering--and strangely vindicated--as he takes the meter back from the nurse, turning it off and garnering a smile from her as she stops being assaulted by the shrill alarm that we can't hear.

"I think I know what it is," Ray offers, pulling out the tiny computer he and Egon put together to hold a portable version of Tobin's. He knows. Already he knows--

"You couldn't have figured it out a couple of days ago!?"

The angry query is out of my mouth before I can stop it, and Ray's face falls in guilt. "I'm sorry, Peter... We didn't know. We thought..."

I sigh hugely, running a hand through my hair in frustration. "'Sokay, Tex," I whisper, looking over at Egon, who sleeps on. God, I hope he's all right. I haven't even had a chance to ask about him. If I hurt him permanently--

No. No! It isn't me! I told myself this a thousand times with Watt. It's the demon--the six swimming inside my psyche. God, please... It isn't me!

"Peter?"

Ray starts to reach out a hand, and stops. He's afraid to touch me. Given what happened to Egon tonight, *I*'m afraid for him to touch me.

"Peter, it's okay. It'll be all right."

Wish I could believe you, Tex. This isn't going to be easy, I can feel it. With Watt, they could track him, measure him, pull him out... How are they supposed to do that now, when they can't even *see* it?

And why the hell do I wish I was in a little corner of my mind, screaming?

************

I knew it. I knew this thing wasn't about Pete. At least not him directly.

Ray is flipping through his _Tobin's_ looking for the right entry. He thinks it's something called a dreamstealer--a subdemon, class six, that feeds off of the subconscious ramblings of the human mind.

And boy, have we been serving up a feast this week. No wonder it's powerful enough to hide from us, feeding on the kind of stuff Ray and I were talking about earlier.

"Here it is!"

Ray's not bouncing, but he will be soon. Now that he knows what's happening, and has a chance to fix it, he'll be his old self in no time. I'm not so sure about Pete.

He's looking rough. And still guilty. I remember the months following Watt. Damn, was he messed up. It was like he didn't even hear us when we told him it wasn't his fault. He told me, weeks later, that he could see everything, he could even feel his body moving... But he couldn't do anything about it. God, I thought it was bad then, but it's gotta be ten times worse now.

He's awake. He's awake and conscious and him, and it's still using him. It's still trying to suck us dry, and I know he has to feel like he should be able to stop it this time. Last time, Watt shoved him aside. This time...

Shit. This time, it's making him watch.

"The Dreamstealer," Ray intones, fascinated by yet another new ghost to meet. "Basically, it's a class six with delusions of demonhood..." His finger holds down a line on the screen as he reads to us. " 'Dreamstealers are known for their ability to cloud the minds of both their victims and their conduits, making the entities difficult to unearth, and even more difficult to erradicate.' " Oh good, kid. We needed to hear that. " 'Conduits are often chosen because of their closeness to the prey, though they are rarely fed upon themselves until the prey itself is sucked dry.' "

Predictable as sunrise, Ray's eyes turn stricken and lurch toward Pete. Trust Ray to forget the "sucked dry" part for himself and worry about Peter's safety. "Gosh, Peter..."

"Can we move on to the busting guidelines, please?" Pete asks shortly. "I want to see if we can stop this whole thing before I have to worry about my own hide, okay?"

The flip tone is a total sham, and we all know it. Pete would let himself be sucked dry in a second, if it stopped whatever's happening to the rest of us.

Ray just nods, looking chastised, and reads on silently. After a minute, he looks up. "Um... we may have a problem..."

Great. "What, Ray?"

"Um... Well it says here that the dreamstealer can eventually become strong enough to transfer energy while both conduit and victim are awake. It does it through skin to skin contact."

Peter sighs, falling back against the sheets in despair. "Already happened."

When? Shit, is _that_ what happened to Egon? Guy was damn near transparent when we got here tonight, and he's sleeping like the dead... Shit. I wish I hadn't thought that...

"What happens when it gets to that stage?" Pete sounds like he doesn't want to know. I know I sure as hell don't.

Ray can't lift his head, and his words come out mumbled. "If enough energy is transferred, the dreamstealer can manifest on its own." He looks up finally, and his eyes are screaming pain. "The manifestation is almost always fatal for the conduit... The human body just can't survive the transfer."

Shit. And Pete's ready to take that chance, too. I can see it in his face as that lightning quick mind of his works overtime.

"Would the energy required for manifestation kill you guys?"

"Pete," I step forward, stopping as he jerks away, terrified I'll touch him too soon. Cause he wants that transfer to happen. Now that he knows we can take that ghost and make it solid, he wants it. But only when he's ready.

"You're not doing this, homeboy."

He looks up at me. "There's got to be a way, Zed." There's a fire in his eyes that ain't quite healthy, mentally speaking. "There's gotta be a way to buffer me against the energy..." He turns to Ray, ignoring the panicked look in our youngest member's eyes. "There's no record of _anyone_ surviving it?"

Ray reluctantly turns back to his book, running through the computer pages quickly. "One... In the Middle Ages, a seer was used as a conduit..." He looks up again, pain written in every line. "She didn't live long."

He's not doing this. I can see Pete summoning up all the resolve he's got, but it isn't gonna happen. There's no way he's throwing his life away on this one. No way in hell.

"Forget it, Pete," I grate, my voice sounding like fury to me. "We'll find another way."

He shakes his head, looking at Egon's sleeping features. "I have to, Zed. I can't... None of you are going to be able to take much more of this."

"So it's better we lose you in the bargain?" I demand angrily. "No way."

"Look, if we can just get it to manifest, you guys can trap it--"

"That won't work."

Ray's announcement makes us both turn to him, and I cringe at the anguish in his face. "It won't work," he repeats. "For us to provide it with enough power, we'd all have to go to sleep again."

"The alpha wave transmitter."

Egon's eyes blink open fuzzily, and I wonder how much he's heard. He looks like he's ready to drop again, but there's a determination in his features, and he's obviously leaning toward Peter's plan. Shit. No way Ray and I can sway both of them.

"What?" Peter doesn't get it, but he's relaxing, just seeing Egon awake.

"The external power source should be enough to provide the energy needed without incapacitating us."

Should. Well, great, Egon. We'll just hang Pete's life on should, then. No problem.

"Egon, there's no way--"

"When can we try it?" Pete cuts through Ray's protest like a knife through butter, and I glare at him. He glares right back. "Can we try it tonight?"

Egon pushes himself up wearily, shaking his head. "We need at least eight hours to reconfigure the generator." He reaches for his glasses blindly, and settles them on his nose, watching Pete. "And I don't believe we can do anything in the shape we're all currently in."

The shape Pete's in. That's what he means. Ray and I are exhausted, don't get me wrong, but we could do it--if the damn fool plan would even work. But Egon's looking more and more at home in that hospital bed, and Pete's even worse.

I can't believe they even want to go through with this. I can see that Ray thinks this is a death sentence too, and I'm not going to lose Peter now, not when we just figured out what the hell is going on.

"Tomorrow."

Pete's gonna do this no matter what. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I'm going to have words with Egon. Serious words. If he honestly thinks we can do this without killing Peter, okay. But he's got even a shred of doubt, and this plan is history.

We're not going to lose him.

I'll let the fucker suck me dry before we do.

* * * 


	4. Chapter 4

Dr. Chong is pissed. It's five-thirty in the morning, and she's got to deal with me and the guys trying to explain something she just is not going to buy.

"A demon?"

"A subdemon, actually," Egon corrects absently. He's feeling better, and just seeing him sitting there on that bed, his fingers flicking back and forth over his calculator keys is doing my head a world of good. I hope he makes it. I hope they all do.

If I don't, I suppose I'll deal--being dead and all, I won't have much choice--but it can't just be a worthless gesture.

Damn, there's a lot of problems with this plan. What if they don't wake up? What if this thing knocks me off and still gets them? But if Egon's right about the dream machine, if the enhanced waves can act like a lure, if he can try to get the dreamstealer to take the electrical energy... If, if, if. Damn, I think I hate this plan.

Too bad I can't blame anybody but me.

"So, you want a sedative for him?" Dr. Chong is asking incredulously. "To be administered by you?"

Winston steps forward. Damn, he hates this plan more than I do, and that's saying something. "I've got EMT training, ma'am. I've done it before." On the battlefield in Vietnam. Don't that make the firehouse seem like a walk in the park?

She's not buying it, I can see it in her eyes. I catch her attention, and hold her gaze confidently. She can't say no. None of them are going to make it if she does.

"Dr. Chong, I know you don't believe this. I know you think we're crackpots... But it's real." She shakes her head. "Look, have you been able to find anything else to explain what's happening? Why I'm passing out, why Egon's moving like a ninety-year-old man? ...If you can't find a medical reason, you want to at least give us the credit of knowing our side of coin?"

That's got her, at least. She sighs, sagging against the inevitable. "If something happens, it's my butt in a sling."

I shake my own head. I know more about culpability waivers than you know about head wounds, lady. "Not if we make this all nice and official, it isn't."

It takes a long moment of silence, but I can see her making up her mind. This is going to work. We'll lure that stinking dreamstealer in, and bag it before it does any more damage.

The guys will be fine. No matter what, *they'll* make it.

I kind of hope I do too. I'm used to this whole living thing.

Even if I do seem to attract the strangest ghosts.

***********

Raymond's worry is a living thing, casting a blanket of stress over our modifications. Not that there isn't enough stress to begin with. Winston and Peter have found something to occupy their time--I believe Peter is expounding upon dreamwalking and lucid REM states--while we attempt the impossible. The fact that I have little more strength than the average ten-year-old is causing its own problems.

"Ray, could you please pass me--"

"A number four phillips. Got it." He passes the screwdriver to me, and I smile. It is wonderful to work with a man who understands and follows my thought patterns so completely. We have always worked well together, but today it is almost as if...

"Raymond?"

He looks up from the schematic he has been studying, curiosity plain on his face.

"Last night... When you touched me..."

His breath blows out in a gust. "That was weird. It hurt--like an electric current running between us."

"Because _I_ hurt..."

My musing was evidently made aloud, because Raymond puts aside the schematic, studying me carefully. "Headache... a pain in your chest, like you were having a heart attack?"

"Thought transference," I theorize, nodding. "Perhaps the fact that the dreamstealer picked all of us, instead of simply one... It is possible that it has forged some sort of temporary link among us."

"Wow!" Ray is as excited as he usually is when we discover something new and different, but his face falls in worry almost immediately. "I hope that doesn't mean it'll need more power to manifest..." He sighs, crouching down next to me and capturing my gaze. "Egon, I don't like this plan. I don't think it's going to work."

"It will work, Raymond." I understand that I am likely giving this brainstorm too much credit, but I see little choice. From the numbers we got by having others read our meters, the entity is far too enmeshed in Peter's energy to pull them apart as we did with Watt. "The only way to capture the dreamstealer is to force it into a form separate from Peter's."

"But that'll kill him!" Ray protests.

"I don't believe so." And I truly don't. For reasons that I do not feel comfortable discussing at this point, I believe that Peter possesses a unique property that may buffer him from the energy drain of the demon's separation. "The morphine drip at the hospital was enough to allow him to sense the entity, and its activities," I remind him. "I believe the sedative Dr. Chong provided will do the same--to a slightly greater degree."

"You believe," he murmurs, forcing me to hold his gaze. "Do you really, Egon?" This is not a plea for reassurance. This is a cold, reasoning query from a man who could face the loss of his best friend tonight. Several best friends, in fact. "Do you really believe this is going to work?"

"Yes." Strangely, I do believe it. I believe that Peter will survive this ordeal. Whether I believe that for myself, given my own depleted state, is irrelevant.

We have little choice in the matter. I can only hope that Peter is as strong as I believe he is, and that my own invention can provide us the buffer we will all need for this upcoming confrontation.

I can only hope...

*********

Winston knows what he has to do. I don't think Egon's strong enough after what I--after what the _dreamstealer_ \--did to him last night to put up enough of a fight, and given what Ray's been dreaming about, I'm afraid he'll be too emotionally trashed to really bring this thing down. And me? Well, we all know I may not be in a position to do anything...

I know it's unfair, and I know it's putting more of a burden on Winston than he deserves, but I can't help feeling that he's stronger than all the rest of us put together. He lived through a whole year of blood and death in Vietnam, he relives it almost nightly, and he's still sane. That's a hell of a lot of power for one man.

And it may be the only power that's going to get us through this.

"Pete..." He trails off, making me look up to see eyes full of so much worry that I can't even speak. "This plan... Are you sure it's going to work?"

"Of course! It came from the brilliant mind of Venkman, didn't it?" The flip response falls flat, and I sigh, dropping my gaze. "I don't know, Zed... I just know that we don't have any other choice. Pulling the damn thing out into the open is the only way to beat it."

He nods after a moment, and risks putting a hand over mine. I can feel the energy flowing out of him, and I jerk back. So he grips my shoulder through my sweatshirt, and I get a little thrill of the bizarre fear I still feel about him instead.

"We'll make it, homeboy." He grins fatalistically. "I don't know how, but we'll make it."

God, I hope so.

Egon stumbles in, Ray right behind him, and Zed and I break apart. God, Egon's on his last legs. It's almost like the energy drain from last night is too much for him, and I'm terrified, if I actually survive this thing, that I'm going to come out of it minus my favorite physicist.

"Egon, you need to get some rest before we try this."

My suggestion makes him stiffen. He's afraid to sleep. Afraid he won't wake up. I stand carefully, swaying a little. God, I'm so damn tired! "Winston and Ray will keep an eye out," I promise, seeing them both nod comfortingly. "And Zed's got the elephant shot for me if... something happens."

He sees the logic, even past his fear, and I know he's thinking the same thing I am. If he doesn't sleep, if he doesn't regain at least a little of the energy that he's had ripped out of him, he isn't going to survive what we all have to face tonight.

And that... That just isn't an option.

"Perhaps an hour," he allows finally, heading toward his bunk on unsteady legs. Ray sees him to it, making sure he doesn't collapse before he gets there. He stretches out on top of the quilt, fully clothed, and meets my eyes with something like pity. "You'll wake me?"

Winston nods when I can't seem to move, and reaches over to clasp Egon's shoulder in comfort. God, I never realized how much I need to feel these guys! I want to reach out and grab his hand and tell him we'll get this mother, and I know that, if I do, I'm just giving it a little more of what it wants.

I want this bastard. I want to yank him out into the sun and throw him in the containment unit where he belongs.

No one hurts my pals. And no one _ever_ uses me to get to them.

*********

Winston's making dinner, but I don't think any of us are going to want to eat it. I'm watching the meter in my hand with eyes that keep going fuzzy, but Egon's biorhythms are still the same. They're really, really low, but they're not dropping. I only wish I could see a rise in them. At least then, I might believe he'll be okay.

I've been thinking about why he's so positive about Peter being able to get through the transfer tonight, and I think I've figured it out. It's the seer--that one in the middle ages. I think Egon still thinks Peter is a little bit psychic, and that his natural abilities are going to make up for what the normal human can't take.

I wish I could believe that too. I know Peter is... more sensitive to stuff like that than the rest of us, but I don't think he's as psychic as all that. I don't think...

No. I'm being stupid. Of course he'll make it. We'll _all_ make it. We've survived a lot more than just a class six, and lived to tell the tale.

God, please let us make it this time.

"Anything?"

Peter's leaning against the door jamb, like he's afraid to come in. Gosh, I guess he probably is. I hate this. I thought Watt was as bad as possession could get--he was worse than Gozer, though that's probably because he got one of us instead of a stranger--but this...?

It's like it _is_ Peter's fault. He can't fight what's inside him, and if we make it through this, he's not even going to have the luxury of being able to know there was nothing he could do. After all, it's not like he's been subsumed by it. Just used. And that's even worse.

Maybe that's why he wants this so bad. Maybe he figures, if he dies trying to capture it, he'll be making up for not stopping it in the first place. And the fact that I can understand that--even if it doesn't bear thinking about--makes me kind of sick. Because I know I wouldn't be very careful for myself if I was in his place.

"Peter... Be careful tonight, okay?" He looks surprised at my sudden request, but he's trying to hide his own fear, and he's doing a pretty good job. Except for the panic in his eyes. "Don't... do anything stupid."

"Like what?" he asks, a fake smile on his face as he risks another step into the room. "Come on, Tex, this is me!"

"That's what I mean, Peter." I'm serious, and he knows it. The wiseass grin falls away, and he meets me halfway across the floor as I rise to go to him. "I can't... I don't think I could live with it if you did something stupid, just to save us." If you die, I leave unspoken, it'll be partly my fault. And I just don't think I could survive that.

"I don't plan on kicking it any time soon, Ray," he tells me quietly. "I promise. I'll be good."

"You'd better, homeboy, or I'm kicking your ass!"

Winston stands in the doorway, looking at Egon, who's still dead to the world. God, why do people make up phrases like that? Winston's eyes are dark and quiet as he watches the rise and fall of our sleeper's chest, and he shakes his head, like he's trying to forget something. If we make it through tonight, I think we all have a lot of time in the psychologist's chair coming to us.

"Dinner's ready," Winston finally offers. "Ray, you want to wake Sleeping Beauty over there and head down?"

He and Peter have to talk. That's the upshot of the suggestion. I nod, turning back toward Egon to try to shake him awake. His eyes open a lot more quickly than they have been doing lately, and he's looking a little better. I'm glad. He's been scaring me.

As Peter and Winston move off toward the lab, I try to get a couple of their words, but all I hear is Winston saying, "Pete, I think you need to know something..." and they're gone.

*********

Peter and Winston join us as Ray is serving up the meal, heaping my plate with far more corn and potatoes than I believe I can eat, given the large slab of steak that sits beside them. Still, I should probably eat something. While I do feel marginally more rested, I fear I'm weaker than I let myself believe. And I shall need all of my strength to make sure we all get through this tonight.

Peter is pensive, and Winston's eyes hold a haunted look I have not seen there before. But both of them are giving off "stay away" signals, and I do not think they would keep something from us that might help in the current battle. They may have their secrets, for the moment. Later, there will be more than enough time to figure it out.

Later. There _will be_ a later. Raymond and I have finished our recalibrations. All that is left is to set up the bunkroom... and pray.

"Sleep do you any good, Spengs?"

Peter has as much need for sleep as I, but he would never agree to it, and I believe it might be dangerous in the extreme to suggest it at all. He is watching me carefully, however, and I draw myself up with an effort, not attempting to hide my fatigue. That particular secret would be catastrophic tonight. We all need to know what we are up against, and what energies we have at our disposal.

"I believe I do feel a bit more rested," I allow, knowing he will see the truth in my statement. He nods once, then sags in exhaustion... and something like despair.

"So," Winston begins, the ghost of a drill sergeant in his voice. "After we eat, I think we'd better get right to it. I've got the IV set up, and there's a plunger for Pete if he thinks the thing is getting out of hand."

Ray nods, and lays out our own preparations. "We've remodulated the frequency on the transmitter--made it put a little more power out. It should act like a lure, and the extra energy should be enough to force the dreamstealer to manifest."

Possibly killing Peter in the process. Dear God, let me be right about him...

"We also managed to recalibrate the headsets," Ray is continuing. "They're personalized, now, to the three of us. Egon and I thought..." He blushes. This was his idea, after all. "We figured it would make it easier for us to knock ourselves out of the dreams, when the time came."

"And how will you know when the time comes?" Peter asks. He is wound far too tightly, and I know that the prospect of lying near us, half-sedated, while this entity attacks, is leaving a sour taste in his mouth. "I'm not going to be a whole lot of help."

"Actually, you're going to let us know," Ray corrects him. "See, Egon and I were doing some figuring, and we think you'll probably be able to get away with a half-dose of sedative for awhile--at least until you start seeing our biorhythms drop. Egon set up an alarm to signal when our readings are too low. It should be enough to either wake us, or let you know to shut down the machine."

That thought does not comfort Peter in the least. Nor does it comfort me. I have set the alarms as low as I dare, but they may be too low, in which case....

"Given what you saw last night, Peter," I offer in consolation, "I believe you will probably have a very good idea of what is happening when it happens."

"You hope."

"Peter, you are far more perceptive than you give yourself credit for," I tell him seriously. "You must rely on that tonight." You must, Peter. Your... perceptions... may be your only chance--and ours.

He nods resolutely and offers a pale smile. "You got it, Egon. One sensitive new age guy coming up."

I frown my disapproval, right on cue. But, God, I hope I will be able to look forward to his flippancy for years to come.

**********

Winston's a much better stick than those girls at the hospital. The needle slides in perfectly, and I can feel the edge coming off of my anxiety as the sedative courses through me. It's not designed to knock me out... just to let me see.

Of course, I'm wishing for pain medication in there too. Couldn't get it, though. Versed is difficult enough to take out of the hospital, no way were we getting morphine. So, I figure I'll be in a world of hurt when the dreamstealer comes calling. Given the headaches it's already given me, I know it won't let me go without a fight.

"You good, Pete?" Winston's eyes are boring into mine as he hands over the plunger he's hooked up to another bag--one with enough sedative to bring me all the way down... Just in case. Am I good? Come on, man, like you don't know the answer? Thinking about what we discussed earlier, I know he'd know the answer if he asked Egon or Ray.

"Just great, Zed, and you?"

"Perfect."

The requisite lies completed, I watch him and the others as they stick the electrodes onto their foreheads and faces. Egon finally decided to limp into the new world and discard the helmets, and I couldn't be happier. If we ever get to use this thing again, at least I won't wake up with hat hair.

They're all ready, their proton packs lying next to them, just like mine is on the floor beside the chair I've pulled up to the dream machine's control panel. Ray's scared--I can almost feel his fear, feel Egon's worry and exhaustion. And over it all, the quiet determination we all have to last out the night.

"Guys, watch it." I know it's useless, and I know they all know how to use guided imagery to keep themselves safe, and I know I'm stating the obvious. "I expect you all back in one piece."

"Right back at ya, homeboy."

 

I watch them all as they compose themselves, and feel a strange shift in myself as they drift off quickly. It's the dreamstealer. That's why they've been dropping off to sleep so easily these days. The subdemon must be able to affect their sleeping habits.

Still, it's not doing anything. Sitting here, surrounded by the meters set to each of their readings, I don't see any change.

But slowly, as the three screens before me start to clear, each one of them resolving into a green, overgrown landscape, I can feel something coming. I can't believe it was able to hide itself when it's this powerful! It's like tiny currents running along every nerve... Maybe it's the Versed, but I'm just caught up in the feeling of it. Wow... Why didn't I feel it before? It's...

It's really kind of cool....

**********

God, I hate the jungle. It's hot, for one. So damn hot and humid that I'm amazed we don't all just melt away into the constant haze. And the bugs! Pete would hate this place--bugs as big as tanks, and half of them bloodsuckers.

The third reason I hate it should be self-explanatory. After all, it ain't just bugs out for my blood here.

The ever-present gnats come swirling around me in a cloud, and I try to resist the urge to swat them. Too much movement this far out is just begging to go home in a box. The VC are always waiting for you to let them know where you are, sitting in their bushes, biding their time until you give them a clear target.

I look around for Spark and Doc... We got separated from the rest of the platoon about twenty minutes ago, and those two need leashes like no two soldiers you've ever seen. Once we hit this clearing, though, we scattered. Too many grunts in one place makes a great mortar target. Not like the VC need more than one of us to start lobbing munitions. But it don't do to give them too many ideas.

Sparky is high and to my left--too far forward for my comfort. Still, he's keeping his head down like I taught him. Doc is behind him, closer to my location, and he's got eyes like a hawk, watching for anything...

And suddenly, it's like my eyes clear, and it isn't Doc and Sparky, but Egon and Ray. Just like all my dreams lately. But they're in their jumpsuits, not the fatigues my mind's been wrapping them in. And it's them. Really them. I can feel it.

That telepathy I talked to Pete about must have been right on the money. I can feel Ray's surprise, his always-strong curiosity, as he finds himself here, and Egon's exhaustion pulls at me, just like his fear does. Shit! They aren't ready for this! Why couldn't they stay locked safe in their own dreams? Nothing they could ever think up on their own is as bad as the reality I've been living with half my life.

"Egon! Ray!" My whisper sounds too loud in the heavy air, but I reach out a hand, slamming it down to the ground in warning. "Keep your heads down and don't move!"

Ray nods briefly, and I can see Egon slouch a little further into the jungle, gripping his gun like a thrower. But this isn't any bust, and the VC damn sure aren't ghosts. At least not the kind we can trap.

I know exactly where the VC are--I've been here a thousand times since then--and I slide off to the right, hoping to take as many of them out as I can before we're out of here. Ray won't fire. I know that even without whatever mind-braid the entity has given us. He just couldn't fire on another human being. He's too soft for that.

And Egon... God, I don't know. I'd like to think he'd do it--if only to save Ray--but I can't have him drawing attention to himself, not after what happened to Doc the first thousand times around.

"Pete!" My hiss rings out, and I hope he can hear me. "You better get ready, buddy. We're going to have to get them out quick."

Shit. He was right. This _will_ be up to him and me. Egon and Ray are way too out of their element here, and I don't think I can count on a sudden bloodthirst from either of them.

And I know I'd never want to.

*************

It's... incredible. All the exhaustion of the last week is just gone. All of it! It's like I can feel every bit of strength coming back to me--like I'm sucking in everything I've ever needed. I'm strong--damn, I'm so damn strong, I'll bet--

"Pete!"

Winston? I pry open eyes that have been reveling in darkness, and focus on three squares of green before me. Two of them show Winston, crawling through the green...

Cool.

"You better get ready, buddy," Winston grates. I wonder what his problem is? Man, he should be here... Whatever's going on, it's great! "We're going to have to get them out quick!"

Sure, Zed. No problem... I close my eyes again, the darkness wrapping around me like a dream... I wish the guys were here to feel this...

*************

The mortar blast actually takes me by surprise this time, and I slam sideways, feeling the sharp sting of shrapnel. I remember worrying I'd scar from the pits in my face. They took weeks to heal after this campaign. After Sparky and Doc--

"Ray!" I run toward him, waiting for the next mortar to fall--knowing I have to get to him in time this time. "Get Egon out of there! The mor--"

And it hits. Black hell from the sky lands right where I left Egon, and I know what I'll find if I live to get there. My eyes close against the memory, and I scream.

"PETE!!!" Volume doesn't bother me now, only results. Please God, let me feel the dream ending now. Let me open my eyes to see Pete looking down at me in triumph, a loaded trap in his hand.

Please God...

But opening my eyes just brings me back here. The cloud of dust is starting to blow off, but I can't wait for it. I'm running, faster than I ever did in the real world. Faster... Dear Christ, let it be fast enough.

"RAY!! Egon!" I sigh in pain at the silence. "Peter?"

Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing... Despair weighs me down, and I stumble, the round drilling into my shoulder, taking me by surprise. That didn't happen before. That _never_ happened. I was shot in Nam, sure, but never on this campaign. It's different... So maybe...

"RAY!?"

"I've got him, Winston!"

Egon! Dear God, it's Egon!

"Keep down!" I scream back, heading for the deep bass voice I'd half-figured was gone forever. If we die here, I just know we die in the real world. I can feel the pain in my shoulder like I've never felt pain in a dream. This is real. It's real, and it's deadly, and it's....

And it's up to me to stop it.

"God damnit Pete, where are you!!"

*************

"PETE!"

Winston again...

Something's wrong. I don't know how I can feel anything wrong through the strength flowing through me, but I can hear panic in his voice... Real live panic.

I open my eyes, taking in sights I never thought I'd see.

Three screens, three different visions of Hell. One is full of racing, swirling jungle, shot through with thick black smoke and blasts of flame. Another holds nothing but a fuzzy green, a circle of imperfect pale skin and blond hair centered within it. And the third... The third has sound effects.

"Raymond?" Egon's voice is rough, and I can believe why. The screen--his dream eye--sees Ray, lying in a rapidly swelling pool of blood. He's focused on Ray's stomach, where bits that shouldn't be on the outside are. I look up at Ray's sleeping figure across the room, but all he's doing is sleeping. "Ray, can you hear me?"

"E--Egon?" The frozen query comes to me in stereo, from two of the screens, but the fuzzy screen sounds distorted... like the speaker's dying. "What... Where's Winston?"

More like a television show than a dream, Winston's screen explodes with a full figure view of both Egon and Ray, and that feeling of strength builds in me at the same time my heart drops out. Egon's bleeding. His chest is covered in blood, and his glasses are half off his face. And Ray... Oh God, Ray looks so much worse from Winston's screen, like Egon doesn't know how bad it is, so his screen can't tell the whole story.

What's happening? Oh God, what's going on!? I can feel something rip through me, something cold and deadly, and suddenly, the strength is draining off... It's draining off and I'm remembering.

Oh shit, the things I'm remembering!

"PETER!! Man, please! I'm begging you! Get their asses out of here!"

*************

I'm shaking from the scream, but I wonder suddenly whether Pete's even alive out there to hear me. He would have pulled us out before, if he was able. Oh man...

"Egon, how's he doing?" I kneel beside them both, shuddering at the grey cast to Ray's skin. Just like Sparky. Just like him. I remember exactly how long Sparks lasted, and I don't think we're getting out of here before that time limit's up.

Egon looks almost as bad, but if I'm going by how long Doc lasted, we'll be okay on that front.

Of course, Doc hadn't had a brain-sucker feeding on him for a week before he died. I keep trying to wake up from this nightmare, but I guess I'm stuck in hell for the duration.

"He's..." Egon takes as deep a breath as the shrapnel in his chest lets him, and I feel a shadow of the pain race through my own ribs. "He's shocky..." His eyes are pleading. "What happened to..."

"Pete?" I finish, when his lungs won't hold out long enough. I shake my head. "I don't know, Egon... Shit. I just don't know."

*************

They think I left them. Oh God, worse than that, I bet they think I'm dead!

The strength that used to flow through me is gone like a bad memory, and I can feel the sedative pulling at my mind. It didn't work--it probably even helped the damn thing--and the fog it's leaving me is only going to get me killed. Fumbling, I finally manage to rip the IV out, crying out as the pain of that wound mixes with the tearing feeling building in my chest. The... the _thing_ is ripping me in two! What little buffer I had melts away like water, and I can feel every slice of its claws as it fights its way out. It's too strong for me now.

It's strong enough to live on its own.

With another shout of pain, I reach for my pack, my eyes going blank as the new beast fights for control of me, throwing every nerve-ending into fits. Fuck this! I caved with Watt, but there is no way in hell I'm leaving my friends to this thing! It takes almost everything I have to grab the shoulder harness, sliding forty pounds that feel more like a thousand onto my back and powering up.

It's coming. Oh, God, oh God, it's coming!

Like a black cloud, I almost see it rising out of me, and I can feel every trace of blood and pain it leaves behind. My eyes finally clear--a little--and I'm face to face with the most godawful bastard I've ever seen.

It sneers at me. It doesn't have a mouth, or a face, or anything, but it sneers. And I know I'm dead. Cold pours off of it in waves, and suddenly, I'm wide awake and pissed as hell.

"Leave them the _fuck_ alone!"

I sound like vengeance as I let my stream shoot into it, and it backs off a step, letting me that much closer to the dream machine. As it recovers, I hazard a look at the screens, and see way more red than green. It's still feeding! As if to prove my point, one meter, then another, starts wailing--shrilling like jet engines as they tell me what I already know.

Ray and Egon are dying. And if I hadn't let that thing get under my skin....

Anger is a powerful motivator, and I lash out, catching the subdemon in a full-strength beam, gritting my teeth against the pain left in what used to be my brain.

"I'm cutting you off, you bastard!" I try to balance the rifle with one hand, reaching out to shut down the dream machine with the other. I'm so close--I'm nearly there--

A blast of energy hits me square in the chest, blowing me through the air like a kite. I think I land on the other side of Egon's bed, but I'm all turned around.

"Peter! Peter, shut down the machine!" Egon's just on the other side of hysterical, but his voice holds that fierce command he gets when we're really in it deep. "Do it NOW!"

Well, what the hell did he think I was trying to do!? I pull myself to my feet, and turn to face the dreamstealer. It's big. Oh, Jesus God, is it big! Something shifts inside it, and I can suddenly see a rope--like the one I saw in the hospital last night--snaking out from in, the twine wrapped securely around the others.

"They are mine." The whisper is in my head, and it soaks my brain with deadly triumph. "You fought me as well as you could, little freak, but they are no longer yours to worry about."

"The hell they aren't!"

Even full stream, I don't think I'm enough to stop it. I throw out a trap, hoping to catch it off guard, but it merely laughs in my head and the trap flies across the room.

"Leave them... You are a fine vessel... Perhaps I'll let you live..."

A sudden wash of strength falls over me, and I feel the power I found so wonderful just a little while ago. But I'm awake now--wide awake, without the sedatives to cloud my thinking. The strength is dark, and dirty, and stolen, and by God, I'm going to return it to its rightful owners.

"Fuck you!"

It falls back another step as I push the thrower closer to overload. I can hear Egon calling to me over the dream machine's speaker, his voice growing weaker as Winston's joins in, stronger, but so full of despair! I push it with the stream, stripping off that little measure of safety we usually leave ourselves. Safety isn't going to do diddly if the guys bite it because of me.

"Very well then, freak," the subdemon says, the cold sound freezing my brain. "I would have liked to keep you... You are... unpalatable as a meal, but so useful as a conduit..." It lashes out, and I hit the wall, feeling something warm and sticky head from my hair to my collar.

Wait a minute... Think, Peter, damnit, think! ...Unpalatable... And Winston said he wondered whether they were all linked by that thing... I look at Egon, lying silent as death... I look at the electrodes on his forehead...

I need all the strength I have just to get to my feet.

"I am _in_ them," it taunts. "They are delicate meals... I feel their anger, their fear. I feel their pain."

"You're a regular politician, ain't ya?" I grate, pushing forward with a blast of protons to distract him. It doesn't do much, and I get a slam of energy in return--one that drives me to my knees. But I keep going forward. I'm almost at Egon's side now...

"There is nothing more you can do, little freak... Leave them to me..."

You know, I'm getting real sick of being called a freak! I reach Egon's bed, and place a hand on his shoulder. Even through his jumpsuit--even with the dreamstealer out of me, I can feel the jolt of pain and anguish rolling out of him. The subdemon hisses with something like pain itself, and I know I'm right.

"You don't like me much, do you?" I ask coldly, my hand sliding up toward Egon's face, toward the electrode at his neck...

"What is it?" I ask casually, trying to keep hold of Egon through the pain. As much as it hurts me, it's just killing the wannabe president over there. "My aftershave? It can't be my breath--I brush three times a day, just like the dentist says." I'm almost out of time as my hand hovers over the electrode. God, I hope this works. "Is it my devastating good looks?"

It sees what I'm doing, finally. Took it long enough to figure it out.

I'm just hoping, as I pull the electrode off and jam it against my own temple, that it took a little too long.

"Hell! Maybe it's just me!"

And then suddenly, I'm swimming in agony. I can't keep standing, but I move, instinctively crawling toward the trap. The demon's screaming now, and I gotta love the sound.

Nothing like dreamstealers begging for mercy. Can't beat that with a stick.

************

"Egon, he's not out there."

I know Winston is correct, but I cannot seem to conceive of it. We are trapped here, and Peter is...

"Egon?"

Ray's voice is nothing, and I have to bend painfully to hear him. "What is it, Ray?"

"Peter's..."

There is a long, slow sigh from him, and I look up to see Winston shaking in anger. I cannot look back to Ray's face.

Winston growls angrily once, before a heavy hand reaches down toward Raymond's face. Closing his eyes, no doubt... The pain in my chest that I had not even noticed suddenly crushes me, and I feel myself falling, met in my descent by the harsh sound of Winston's sobs.

* * * 


	5. Chapter 5

It's almost anticlimactic. Hell, it's totally anticlimactic. The damn dreamstealer, exhausted by having its conduit blow up in its face--and I think I may have literally done that. Can't quite tell yet--slides into the trap like mist, and the pain in my head eases... A little bit.

I rip the electrode off my temple, feeling fresh blood well up, and head back to the dream machine on legs that just plain do not think they're going to make it.

They do, of course, and I slump into the chair for about two seconds, before the screens on the machine's control panel make me lurch to my feet.

Two blank... And the meters have stopped screaming...

Winston's still there, though, but his screen is half-blinded. I see two shadows that I know too well, and I can hear his sobs over the speaker.

Oh God...

Egon... is breathing. It takes me a minute to believe it, as I collapse on the side of his bed, ripping the remaining electrodes from his skin a little more gently than I did from my own. He's breathing... Ray... It takes me longer to get there, but I find the same result. Ray's alive, too. I don't know _why_ they're both alive, but I'll sure as hell take it. I pull the pads off his face... At least I can wake Winston up in good conscience now. At least he won't wake up to the same nightmare he's dreaming...

As the last electrode comes off Ray's face, Winston sits bolt upright, a scream pouring out of a throat I didn't even know had that capacity.

I don't remember getting over here, but I grab him by both shoulders, not feeling anything but the texture of his jumpsuit, and shake him. "Winston!" He's staring straight ahead--he doesn't even see me... I turn quickly to look at Egon and Ray, but they're both still out of it.

"Winston," I call, loud as I can while trying not to pass out. "Winston, wake up!"

He does. Oh man, does he.

Strong, vicious hands grip my upper arms, and my own grip falls away in response.

"Where the hell were you!?"

He shakes me with every word, and the anger and pain in his eyes is enough to scare me shitless. A thought comes to me as I'm shaken... A thought I had a few days ago when he touched me. Winston is going to kill me.

"Where the hell were you, Peter?!" he demands, squeezing me hard enough to make me cry out. "You let them die, man! They were dying and you didn't get them out!"

The truth of the statement--even though they're both breathing--is enough to make me take the shaking. God knows I deserve it.

"Winston?"

Ray's voice is weak, but the pleading tone gets through, and Winston looks over at him in shock.

"Ray?" He takes a deep shuddering breath as his grip momentarily tightens. "My God... _Ray_?"

"Winston, stop it."

Winston doesn't know what to stop--hell, I'm not even sure he knows I'm here anymore. He lets go quickly enough to send me to the floor, and I do it gladly, making room for Ray, who has a tight arm wrapped around his belly. Winston's favoring his right arm as they hug. And me? I go off to check on Egon.

Winston will be okay. In a minute.

Of course, I think he might have broken my arm, but it's nothing that dreamstealer didn't try... And with a lot more malice.

So Ray and Winston are conscious, and talking. I can hear Ray's murmur as I sit heavily on Egon's bed... again. But Egon's still asleep. There are little round burns where his electrodes were attached, and I remember now that we had this great big discussion about these things. See, there's apparently a rule about electrode sets: one brain, one set.

And Ray said Egon's set were specially calibrated for him.

Our brains are... really, really different.

"Egon?" I shake him, my arms screaming in protest. Hell, everything's screaming. What the fuck--let it. "Come on, big guy. Time to wake up."

"Peter?" Ray's tottering toward me, his arm still locked around him. He's breathing hard, like he's just learning how again, but his eyes are on me, and he's crying. "Are you okay?"

You know, one day, people will stop asking questions they don't want the answers to. It's going to save so much time and energy when they do. I think I'll do my part for the movement by not answering him.

"Why isn't he waking up?"

Ray doesn't like the evasion, and he leans over, wincing as he looks at my face. "Peter, your head... You're bleeding."

I am? Oh, yeah, okay. I'm bleeding. "Ray? Why isn't Egon waking up?"

"He passed out..." Just Winston's voice causes me to stiffen, and I look over at him, still sitting immobile on his bed, hoping he won't launch himself at me again. There's an apology in his eyes, and I relax a little. I'm not going to relax completely until a certain blue-eyed physicist wakes the hell up, though. "He was..." Winston's swallow is audible from here. "Ray was hurt worse than he was, but Egon just kind of... dropped."

Probably right when I tried to borrow his brain. Damn, it seemed like a good idea at the time. The dreamstealer didn't like the taste of me, so I figured maybe I could give him some kind of allergic reaction by inserting myself into the energy flow again. It worked, but...

"Come on, Egon, wake up already." I rub his hand, relishing the fact that I can do that now without draining him any more. "Sleeping late is--" I swallow painfully. "Sleeping late is my job."

Ray's found a place to sit on the other side of Egon's bunk. He's got a hand on Egon's forehead, but he's still watching me. "Peter, what happened?"

What happened? Hmmmm.... Well, let's see: you guys went to sleep, I played nice nice with the demon... You all almost got killed because I couldn't control it--

"I don't know, Ray..." I look up from Egon's face and see only worry in Ray's. If I were him, I'd be as pissed as Winston. "It..." It what? Offered me all your energy and I ate it with a spoon? Shit. "I caught the mother." Like that'll somehow make it all okay.

He's still not waking up. "Should we call an ambulance?" We should. We should call an ambulance...

A hand on my shoulder makes me jump, and I squirm out from under it, feeling even worse as I see the guilt and pain race across Winston's features. He hides it quickly though, sighing as he reaches out to touch the side of my face.

"You're sure going to need one."

I don't know why he'd say that. So I got thrown against a few walls. Got a nice concussion, a little post-possession migraine... No, the guy who needs an ambulance is this god damned brain in front of me who _will not wake up_!

"Pete..." Winston sighs, and I try to get my muscles to relax. This is Winston after all. He wouldn't _really_ kill me. "What did it do to you?"

Okay, if he knew the answer to that question, maybe he would. Hell, _I_ would!

"It--" I'm cut off by a deep bass groan.

Ah! Saved by the brain!

"Egon?"

I grasp his hand, but that seems to hurt him, so I content myself with a light touch to his shoulder. He hisses painfully, and just as I wonder whether he'll ever open his eyes, he blinks twice and focuses on Ray.

"Ray?" His voice is weak, and he gasps in pain at the sound, closing his eyes again. Shit, what did I do to him now?

"Doc... died of a chest wound," Winston supplies, his own gaze going to Ray, who's pale and exhausted and clutching his belly. "I bet your stomach's not feeling so hot, is it, Ray?"

"I could use some aspirin," Ray agrees, blushing when I look him up and down, trying to gauge what he's not telling us. "I'll be okay, Peter." He carefully unzips his jumpsuit and pulls up the t-shirt beneath, showing me that fishwhite belly of his. "See, no wound."

No visible one, anyway. I figure just being in Winston's dream is going scar the kid for life. I chafe Egon's hand, trying to sound as demanding-yet-gentle as possible. "Come on, Egon. Give me a break here, huh?" I can feel myself rocking, like I did when I was a kid and I was freaked. "Please?"

You know. I gotta remember to use the magic word more! Egon's eyes flutter open again, and this time, he's watching me, not Ray. He tries to lift a hand to my face, but his body still thinks he's got a bullet in his chest, and he can't quite complete the gesture.

"Peter... What... happened to your head?"

I can finally feel myself starting to really relax. Egon's exhausted, and his eyes are kind of fuzzy--well, I never did give him his glasses, did I?--but he's going to be okay. Not to say he isn't getting an all-expenses-paid trip to St. Vincent's, but.... Him, Ray, Winston... Everybody's going to be fine. Time to make sure they know it.

"I tried to share your brain," I answer, smiling, even though it sends yet another stab of pain through my temple. Egon's not tracking, so I pick up the lead from the dream machine. "One brain, one set of electrodes. Words to live by."

"You... attached the same set to both of us?" There's a trace of reproach in his otherwise strengthless voice, and I almost chuckle at it. He's going to be just great.

"Hey, I was improvising!" I protest, looking up to see Ray's smile, and Winston's reluctant grin. "Didn't have much choice with a class twenty-three demon taking potshots at me."

That freaks him a little, and he tries to sit up, groaning in what just has to be agony at the movement.

"Hey now," I tell him firmly, holding him down. "No getting up until we're sure you won't fall down again, okay?"

"I'm calling an ambulance," Winston murmurs quietly, heading for the phone. He can't meet my eyes, and I'm not sure I want him to. "Seems like you all need one."

"Says the guy who got shot in the arm," Ray quips gamely. That sets Egon off again, and Ray grabs his other arm in comfort. "Don't worry, Egon. It didn't bleed anymore than yours did."

Egon fingers his chest like he's expecting to find a hole, and I see his muscles relax to find himself in one piece. He looks up at me, staring hard. He wants to know if I'm okay.

I'm really, really not. But damned if I'm telling him that. Time for the Venkman Touch.

"I did pretty good, huh?" I lie, smiling broadly.

Egon just stares at me, and I'm glad he hasn't got his glasses yet. "A class twenty-three, Peter? Surely you don't want to have me explain the classification system to you again?"

"Egon, buddy," I say quietly, falling beside him and stealing half his pillow, "you can explain whatever you want to me." I yawn deeply, feeling everything finally catch up. "I'm catching some z's."

As I drift off, I feel a gentle hand on my forehead--a hand that doesn't give off anything but comfort.

"Go to sleep, Peter," Ray whispers softly. "You've earned it."

Thanks, Ray. I just wish I could believe you.

************

It has been more than thirty hours, and Peter is still asleep.

This is somewhat of a record for him, as post-insomnia crashes go, but I think he's earned the right, given what he's been through.

The nightmare wounds Winston's dream inflicted are gone for the rest of us--though the phantom pain in my chest still twinges--but Peter's wounds were physical, and they will have to heal in their own time.

As will our various emotional ones.

Dr. Chong was on-call again when Peter was admitted yesterday, and she has made it abundantly clear that she expects never to see us again. That said, she has been very helpful during non-visitor's hours, and one of us has been here the entire time, waiting for Peter to awaken. Repeat CAT scans have shown no lasting effects from his ordeal, and all of our biorhythms have stabilized and returned to normal.

I wonder when our lives will do the same.

Winston has been conspicuously absent in the last ten hours, as if he fears he'll be the one present when Peter wakes. We three have discussed our own memories of what happened, and I know Winston feels he was unfair to Peter upon his own awakening. While true, I think he doesn't understand the mind of Peter Venkman quite as well as he wishes to. Peter will not hold that against him.

In fact, I think it far more likely he will hold it against himself. He no doubt feels that he should have gotten to us sooner--that somehow he could have stopped what happened. I _do_ know the mind of Peter Venkman, better perhaps than I wish to, and I know that no one will receive any blame in this fiasco save himself.

The majority of the blame--minus that of the dreamstealer itself--rests upon a different man's shoulders entirely.

I should have realized what was happening long before we got to this point. Had I paid more attention--had I been less ready to accept such an unacceptable answer to the problem--I could have prevented so many hurts. I should have trusted that Peter would know if he were suddenly capable of such things. And I should have trusted him to have the strength to fight.

We have puzzled over the IV that Peter abandoned, seeing that we cannot speak to him about it as his flippant words about the class twenty-three demon were his last waking ones. Raymond believes that the sedative may have been counterproductive, and that Peter himself pulled out the line, rather than give the subdemon any more control.

If that is the case, I am more at fault than I feared.

I wish Peter would wake up. Dr. Chong assures me that it is no more than exhaustion and the pain of his injuries that keeps him under, but I would feel far better if he were awake and as annoying as usual. Janine has expressed her own worry, and I think, if he doesn't wake up soon, I may have to bring her here to talk his ear off until he wakes.

As if my threat could be heard, Peter shifts in his sleep, and I cast aside the journal I was not reading, sitting forward and taking hold of his hand. He jerks out of my grip on instinct, but I retake the sudden fist. He needs that contact, so long denied by the entity that used him. I hope it will make him feel the truth of his hard-won safety.

"Peter?"

"Go 'way, Egon." His voice is a four-year-old's and I smile at the familiar game. "Tired."

"Are you going for a record, then? Most hours slept in a row, perhaps?"

My teasing tone gets through to him, and he stretches carefully. "How long's it been?"

"Thirty hours and twenty minutes," I advise him.

He turns over, somehow managing to leave his hand in my grasp. "Wake me in another ten. That'll make the record."

He isn't going back to sleep. I recognize his ploy for what it is, and I cannot let it pass this time any more than I do others. "Perhaps you would like Slimer to come and wake you?"

A lid cracks over one green eye, and I hide a grin at the malice there. "Egon, you booking for disability? Cause I can work with that."

"Peter..." I suddenly find myself very serious, and I ache to have him prove that he is okay. "I would like you to wake up."

"Well if you put it that way..." His eyes open fully and focus on me, and he offers a pale, tired smile. "Hey."

"Good morning," I reply, though it is nearing good night.

He stretches comfortably, though I see a twinge of pain as he uses abused muscles. X-rays showed no broken vertebrae, but his back is a mass of bruises. The reason for that has remained locked in his sleeping mind. "Winston and Ray?"

"They're fine," I assure him quickly. "I believe they went out to bring back some dinner."

He ponders that fact, frowning. "I could eat."

"The hospital staff will be happy to hear that," I reply with a grin. "It seems they had a hard time finding a vein for the IV."

He grimaces, looking at the offending tube with something like disgust. "I could really learn to hate those things."

"You certainly did the night before last."

He falls silent at my observation, studying the tubing as if it holds the mysteries of life.

"Peter..." I begin.

"Can we wait until the guys get here, Egon?" he requests quietly, turning exhausted features toward me. "I don't really want to go through this more than once."

I nod my agreement, wondering again what he was put through while we slept. He seems... well, one would say exhausted, but that goes without saying... Perhaps beaten down is a better description.

"You're safe, Peter," I vow. "It's over."

He nods tiredly...

But I don't think he really believes me.

************

Ray's balancing two bags of chinese and a six-pack of Coke. This is third meal he's brought for Pete, and I'll make book it's the third time we split his share among the three of us. I think Pete's going to sleep forever, at this point.

Which could be worse. After all, if he pulls a Rip van Winkle, I won't have to face him.

I mean, what the hell do I say to him? Sorry I tried to pull your arms off, buddy. Heat of the moment, you know? Shit. Bad enough he nearly ended up dead on this one, but for me to accuse him of abandoning us when he was getting fried himself...?

But, damn, it was just like Nam all over again. As many times as I dream about it, there's a little voice in my head that tells me I'll wake up. I'll wake up and I won't have to face the jungle again. This time, I figured I'd be waking up to Hell. And you'd better believe that, for a minute there, I looked up at Pete, living and breathing, and blamed him for the whole damn thing.

Which makes me a bastard of the highest order, I guess.

"How's your arm?"

Ray's question hits me out of the blue, and I look at him in confusion for a minute before it filters through.

"Fine, man. Not a twinge today."

He grimaces. "Wish I could say the same about my stomach."

"Because the half-pack of Oreos last night had nothing to do with it, right?" I shoot back, smiling a little. Ray's getting back to normal. I know there's a huge part of him that's dying inside, but it ain't any bigger than the part I lost twenty years ago. We spent an hour last night just talking about it, and I think it did me just as much good as it did him.

"Maybe," he allows with a grin. "Do you think he's awake yet?"

There's a real tone of pleading in his voice, and I wish I could reassure him. But I don't think Pete's up just yet.

Or maybe that's just wishful thinking...

"Hey guys! Bring any for me?"

Wishful thinking it is, then. Pete's sitting up in bed, smiling like he's won the lottery. His gaze settles on me for a long minute, and I can't say a word. There's guilt in _his_ eyes!

"Peter!" Ray heads for him like a freight train, and Egon barely manages to save dinner before the kid is barreling into Peter, hugging the stuffing out of him. Wish I could do that, too.

"How you doing, Tex?" Pete asks brightly, looking for all the world like nothing happened. "So, what'd you bring me? Egg foo yung?"

Ray manages to blush, which makes Pete chuckle. God... It's good to hear him laugh again.

"Kung Pao Chicken."

"Oh, Ray, you wound me!" Peter throws a theatrical hand to his brow, wincing as he hits his temple. Whatever he did when he was fighting that thing, he burned the hell out of himself. Dr. Chong is talking about skin grafts. That's going to take the starch out of our playboy. No doubt. Still, for now, he's hamming it up.

"Here I sit, on my deathbed--" I shiver at the phrase, but he doesn't notice-- "and you bring me _chicken_?!"

"Well, I'm relatively sure that the rest of us could eat it for you, Peter," Egon allows smoothly. "We wouldn't want you do suffer so on your deathbed."

Okay, stop saying deathbed!

"Thanks, Egon," Pete grouses. He looks up at me, trying for a normal tone. "You see this, Zed? No respect. None at all."

"Yeah," I quip back. "You and Rodney Dangerfield, man."

My smart remark relaxes him, but he still steals the occasional glance as we eat. Egon's bursting with curiosity, and Ray's nearly bouncing. They've been speculating on what happened while we were deep-sixed, and now that Pete's back, they may actually smother him with questions.

Funny, he doesn't seem much like he's up to answering them.

"So..." Ray asks, digging around for one more chopstick of pepper steak. "What happened!?"

Pete's quiet for a lot longer than he should be, like he's trying to work up to an apology. I've seen him try to say he's sorry before, and it ain't pretty.

But why's he apologizing now? He saved the day, didn't he?

As if he's finally got it all straight, he begins the story.

"The Versed was... a really bad idea," he tells us. I can see the guilt in Egon's eyes, and by the irritation on his face, so can Pete. "It's not like the rest of us didn't think it would help too, Egon. Jeez!" He takes a deep breath, bracing himself. "I think the dreamstealer was making all of you fall asleep faster... It kind of... came out when you started to dream..."

Ray wants to ask a million questions, but he doesn't. Nobody does. Pete's having a hard enough time telling us without being bombarded.

"It... It kind of took over--for a minute." His eyes darken. "Long enough for everything to go to shit for you guys."

Egon grabs his hand, and Pete sighs, squeezing back.

"Anyway, after a while, it started trying to get out. That's when I realized that the sedative was actually helping it get a better hold. So I pulled out the IV." He grimaces in remembered pain. "God, it was like being torn apart from the inside."

"But you survived it, Peter," Egon reminds him, sounding like he's proved a point.

"Yeah. Venkman luck, I guess." Pete shivers for a minute before he goes on. "Once it was out, it started fighting--and so did I." He says it defensively, like maybe we might think he didn't.

Like maybe _I_ might think that.

"The pack didn't do much--probably would have if it hadn't gotten such a boost from the dream machine." He looks askance at Egon. "But I think that's what really saved me, Spengs. I figure it must take the energy from the conduit to make it whole, and it didn't have to take that from me, because good old Con Ed supplied it." Egon's trying to accept that, but his eyes still find the floor.

"Anyway, after about the third time of me trying to get to the off switch, it started talking to me... telepathically." His knees slide up to meet his chest, and I swear, he'll start rocking in a minute. "It kept telling me how I was a freak, and it didn't need me anymore." Something there doesn't sound right--not the words, but the tone. "I figured after a while that there was something about being a conduit that made you... unpalatable... to the damn thing." He snorts, and the rocking begins. "Imagine anyone finding me unattractive!"

"It hardly bears thinking about," Egon puts in dryly.

"It had thrown me over behind Egon's bunk, and I remember thinking that maybe I could... overload the circuit or something. Introduce the conduit back into the system..." His eyes close, and I can almost feel the pain coming off of him. "So I grabbed one of Egon's leads, figuring that since he was already caught up in the dream, I could kind of piggy back in. God, it hurt like hell." He grins ferally for a minute. "But it hurt that bastard a hell of a lot more."

He sighs, trying to bring his knees back down. "Anyway, after that, I got to the trap, and he just went down. Simple as that."

He's shaking by the time he's finished, and the rest of us are struck dumb. Sure, Pete. Simple as that.

"I didn't even bother to turn off the machine. I just figured I'd unhook you all. I... saw the monitors, but..."

God damnit, this sucks. I think... I think Pete's going to fall apart again.

"But... once you guys were awake..." He takes a deep breath, trailing off uncertainly.

"You were finally able to give in and rest," Egon finishes for him. Pete nods, already half asleep again.

Ray reaches out, touching his arm carefully, and I'm warmed when Pete seems to revel in the contact.

"Gosh, Peter, you saved our lives!"

And what did I do in return? Nearly took your head off for it. Nice going, Win. Way to stand behind your friends.

Pete's still exhausted--and honestly, Egon's not much better. That boy's been here the entire time, and I know for a fact that those chairs are damn near impossible to sleep in. "So, Pete," I offer, flinching a little as he opens his eyes again and stares at me. "What do you say we let you get some sleep?"

"Yeah!" Ray agrees, reading my mind. "I'll hang out here, and Egon and Winston can get some sleep, too." He's not really reading my mind. That stopped when we woke up. Actually, Ray figures it stopped when Pete unhooked us from the dream machine. He figures that, since the telepathy was tied to the dreamstealer, and the dreamstealer was tied to the dream, once I woke up, all of that fell apart. Can't say I'm entirely glad to see it go. Being that aware of the guys was kind of nice, in a way.

I wish I could do that with Pete. Then I wouldn't have to say the words, you know?

"I believe I'd like--" Egon begins, arguing for staying another night in that chair.

"To get your ass home and get some rest," Peter finishes for him. Egon looks like hell and he knows it. Trust Pete to cut to the chase. "I'm the one in the hospital this time, remember, Spengs?" He finally uncurls, stretching his legs out flat and snuggling down under the covers. "Stop stealing my thunder with the nurses."

Egon knows better than to argue with Pete when he gets like this. Mother Hen Venkman is not to be trifled with. Getting up proves a little tough for our physicist, and he sways a minute before straightening. "Peter..."

"Spare me, Spengs," Pete grates good naturedly. "I'm here, I'm fine, I'm _tired_! Let me sleep."

Egon smiles at that. It always amazes me that Pete knows just what tone to strike with him to get him to listen. "Never let it be said that I stood in the way of Peter Venkman's sleep."

"Yeah right," Pete throws back with a yawn, his eyes closing again. "Cause you *never* do that."

We stand there a minute more, just watching him as he drifts off again. Egon's starting unwind finally, and that means I've got to get him to Ecto quick before he falls asleep completely. Ray and I share an amused glance for the resident nutjobs, and he waves goodnight, seeing me to the door as I lead Egon out.

It'll be okay. Pete'll be okay...

I just think it'll take a while before I am.

************

Winston is watching me.

I think it must be a holdover of the possession, but I'm just, like, hyperaware of the guys since I came home yesterday. They're hovering--which is pretty normal, given the circumstances--but even with my back turned, I know he's there. I can even see the look on his face as I work slowly into my sweatshirt.

See, he left a hell of a lot of bruises.

I looked at them in the shower, and they're really impressive. Hell, I bet you could get his fingerprints off my arms! I know why he did it--I even agree with why he did it--but that doesn't mean he needs to walk around feeling guilty about it.

"Enjoying the show, Zed?" I ask lightly, turning toward him as I finish dressing. "There's this bar my friend Antonio was talking about, if you're interested in that kind of thing..." Okay... light and airy not cutting it with Zed today. I sit down carefully, still feeling like I've been rode hard and put up wet. "So, what's on your mind?"

"Pete..." He sighs explosively, and I know what's coming. And I hate that he feels the need to do this.

"I'm sorry."

I smile, and I mean it. "You got a hell of a grip there. Ever thought of arm wrestling as a second career?"

That earns me a grin, albeit a small one. "This _is_ my second career."

I shrug. "You can never have too many, man."

"Pete, be serious for a second," he pleads. And I am. I'm serious as all hell. "I... Man, I accused you of leaving us there--of abandoning us!" He's hurting, and there isn't any reason for it. And I have to work up the courage to tell him that. "You were out here, getting trashed by that thing... And the first thing I do when I wake up is trash you again."

He doesn't seem to know what else to say. Luckily, I do.

"Vietnam. You remember it pretty well, huh?" He just stares at me. "Well, your vision in the dream machine was crystal clear. Looked like you knew that particular patch of jungle pretty well." After a moment, he nods, and I think he knows where I'm going with this. But hell, getting there is half the fun, right?

"So, you've had that dream what, a couple thousand times, right?"

"Not so much," he grunts reluctantly.

"Okay, so let's say a thousand times, then." I force him to meet my eyes and lock him in. "How many times did you _know_ it was real, and expect to be pulled out of it?"

"Pete--that wasn't your fault, though, man!" God, he's still trying to blame himself for it! That dark little secret I swore I'd keep to myself comes bubbling up, and I try to tamp it down. "You were fighting for your life, too!"

"But I wasn't!"

The cry is not what I wanted to come out of my mouth, but Winston's blaming himself when he should be blaming me--and I may be my father's son, but damned if I'm going to shirk blame like he always does!

"That's the point, Zed. I _liked_ it! When the dreamstealer was trying to take over? I _liked_ the power!" I can feel tears start to fall, but I can't worry about that right now. I just need him to see that I deserve what he did. I deserve a whole hell of a lot more! "I... God, I could have sat there all day and let it suck you dry! Do you know it offered to keep me--use me as its own favorite conduit?" My grin is probably more of a rictus, but I can't stop it. "And in return, it was going to let me feed--just like it does!"

"Pete, man, I know--"

"I don't, Zed." That's the problem. "I don't know that it was just the drug, or the exhaustion, or the situation. For all I know it's my own weak willed constitution!"

"It certainly isn't that."

Oh great. Egon. Just who I wanted to see while I poured my sins out.

"Peter... I believe we had this discussion a number of years ago... About a certain demon?"

"Spengs, this is not the same thing at all," I aver, watching him walk all the way in, standing beside Winston like they're my own personal jury. "Watt stuffed me so far down inside myself, I could barely breathe." I advance a step, trying to make them see. "I was _there_ , Egon--right there! I could think, and reason, and... God damnit I _heard_ you guys!" I turn away, wishing there was a clear path to the door. "I heard you and..."

"And the dreamstealer stopped you from helping us."

Winston's voice can be one of the most reassuring things in the world. But right now, I don't want any reassurance.

"It wasn't just the dreamstealer."

"No," Egon agrees, moving toward me and placing a hand on my flinching shoulder. "It was the fact that it had been tearing you apart, bit by bit, for a week." His voice drops, and I strain desperately to hear him. "Peter... It was killing you. Even if it had persuaded you to help it--and I am absolutely certain that would never have happened... It _was_ killing you. Surely the blinding headaches should have been your first clue?"

He sounds so logical... God, I want to believe him, but... "I _wanted_ it, Egon. I wanted... what he stole from you--what I _let_ him steal!" I drop down onto my bed. I'm so tired of this!

"Peter, when did you pull out the IV?"

What the hell has that got to do with anything?

"When I..." My eyes close as the pain comes back full force. "When I knew you were dying."

"And what does that tell you?"

You're kidding, right? "It tells me that you had to die before I would get off my butt and do something!"

Winston walks over slowly, sitting beside me on the bed. "Funny. It tells me that we were a whole hell of a lot more important to you than any power trip ever could be."

He's fooling himself.

"Peter... It was never you." Egon's sitting too, holding onto my arm like it's a lifeline. "It was a combination of a hundred different things. The sedative that wore away what little control you had left, the constant strain of the dreamstealer itself... Must we tell you this every day for another six months before you believe us?" He's shaking me now, and I have to meet his eyes--eyes that hold nothing but compassion and love for me. I try to look away, but I'm just too exhausted. "We can't make you believe it. But that doesn't mean it isn't true."

"Come on, homeboy," Zed pleads, a catch in his voice that pulls at me. "Let it go."

I... I want to. God, I want to do that more than anything. I just can't understand why it felt so good!

"It took you away from yourself, Peter," Egon whispers. "It stripped what defenses you had, and made you _want_ to be strong--made you think that was the only way to do it." He shakes me again, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me toward him. "But you were strong by yourself, Peter. You were strong enough to fight it when you could have given in."

I... I _did_ fight it... I didn't give in the second time. Not when it could have had all of us....

"Oh God, Egon... It... It would have killed you!"

"And you would never have let that happen, Peter. I know you--better than you know yourself, sometimes." He sighs into my hair, and I feel something give in my chest. "Please... Please believe that we know you would never hurt us."

I wouldn't. God, I'd never hurt them! I'd kill before I let that happen... Before I gave in...

"I love you guys," I whisper, finally starting to believe what Egon is telling me. "You know that, right?"

"I think what you did a few days ago pretty much proved that, my man."

I turn in Egon's embrace to see Winston, his hand on my shoulder, and the quiet certainty in his eyes is enough for me, finally. He knows I tried. He knows I tried to save them.

And the fact that he's here to show me that is all the comfort I need.

"Guys? What's wrong?"

Ray's concerned voice draws all our eyes, and he advances, adding himself to the hug.

Okay, _now_ I have all I need.

And I'm never letting go.

* * *  
The End


End file.
